George Santos and Miami? It’s definitely on brand — for both of us | Opinion

It was only a matter of time before the George Santos trail led to Miami.

Santos, the Republican congressman from New York who has managed to outdo even the accomplished liars in Washington with an over-the-top resume containing claims that seem largely made up, spent time in Miami during a 2021 campaign trip. And — shocking no one — it looks as though his expenses don’t comport so well with reality, according to a Miami Herald story this week.

The whole thing is right on brand, for him and for us.

Miami, where we never met a huckster or scam artist that we didn’t embrace or at least tolerate, would naturally draw Santos, whose list of falsehoods includes that his mother escaped the 9/11 terrorist attacks and later died from related cancer, that he attended Baruch College in New York and starred on the volleyball team, and that he worked for Goldman Sachs and Citigroup.

A lot of lies

This is the same guy who, when asked about his claims of Jewish heritage, tried to backpedal by saying he was “Jew-ish.” The same guy who said four people at his company died in the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando — only walking that one back after The New York Times reported that none of the 49 victims appeared to have worked for his companies.

As you might imagine, he’s under investigation by the district attorney’s office in Nassau County, N.Y. Authorities in Brazil are seeking to reinstate a 15-year-old fraud charge against the congressman from 2008, when Santos was 19. And watchdog groups in the United States are looking into his campaign finance reports. That’s where Miami comes in.

According to his spending reports, Santos stayed at the W South Beach hotel, ate at a steakhouse owned by the celebrity chef known as “Salt Bae” and had meals at a vintage-style diner in Miami Beach. And yet a Miami Herald reporter, trying to retrace his steps, found puzzling discrepancies. There were parking expenses at a surface lot just north of the Eden Roc and Fontainebleau hotels that seemed impossible to tally up. Restaurant tabs at the Miami Diner that didn’t fit with any receipts kept by the manager. Two separate stays at the South Beach W Hotel were reported as well, one for $199.99 — the bargain of the year, if it’s true, for a hotel at that location.

Suspect loan

Santos is facing major questions, as well, about the $700,000 he was able to loan his own campaign despite having only $55,000 in earned income a year earlier.

On Tuesday, Santos stepped down from his House committees. The move was described as temporary, but no one with even a cursory grasp of what’s been going on believes that.

Perhaps there was a Florida-based clue to the way this would go down way back in 2020. That’s when Santos, on Twitter, said he was a part-time resident of “Sunny Isle,” an apparent reference to Sunny Isles Beach, north of Miami Beach.

“I’m a sunny isle part time resident and LOVE IT,” Santos wrote, responding to a tweet that has since been deleted. The Herald couldn’t verify whether that was, in fact, true.

This story was originally published January 31, 2023 at 3:31 PM.