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By: Ellen Cans
The scandal over serial-lying Rep. George Santos is being featured in a new advertising slogan by a NYC vetting firm, in hopes of luring in new business.
As reported by the NY Post, a Manhattan-based background-check firm has launched a new social media campaign hoping to bank in on the recent political scandal. The company, SRA Screening, performs criminal, court, motor vehicles and credit investigations, mostly for private firms. The company launched a new social-media ad campaign saying, “Don’t Get SANTOS’D. Call SRA Screening Before You Hire.”
“Santos is the gift that keeps on giving,” said John Sherman of SRA. “It’s been a remarkable story…I know how easily something like the Santos scandal can be avoided,” he said. “We would have known in minutes that Santos was a fraud.” Sherman added that it’s hard for screening firms to vet the background of a candidate without the person’s consent, saying this should be changed. “The constituent is the employer. That’s who the politicians work for. If people want to run a background check, they should be able to run a background check,” Sherman said. He also said he would be willing to run some free background checks on members of Congress or candidates running for Congress in the future, in order to prevent another Santos incident.
Santos, the 34-year-old Republican, won a seat in recent elections to serve New York’s 3rd congressional district, covering parts of Long Island and northeast Queens. As previously reported by the Post, shortly after his victory over Democratic opponent Robert Zimmerman, Santos came under heavy fire for allegedly telling some untruths and admittedly fabricating parts of his personal and professional resume, including his employment history, college education and Jewish heritage. Santos, who took office on Jan. 3rd, admitted during a Post interview in December that he fabricated parts of his resume — including when he said he earned a degree from Baruch College, worked for Citigroup and Goldman Sachs, owned 13 properties and had strong ties to Jewish culture. “I said I was ‘Jew-ish,’ ” Santos infamously told The Post.
“My sins here are embellishing my resume. I’m sorry,” Santos admitted to the Post in December. “I am not a criminal.”
Santos is currently under investigation by the House Ethics Committee regarding the fabrications in his resume. Nassau County Republican Party Chairman Joseph Cairo, who was one of the Republicans who called on Santos to resign, has admitted that the GOP did not sufficiently vet Santos’ background. Santos is being investigated by federal, state, and county authorities to probe whether he also violated campaign finance laws — with investigators particularly eyeing a $700,000 initially listed in documents as personal loans to his campaign. Last week, Gov. Kathy Hochul joined the bipartisan voices calling on Santos to resign. Also last week, at the House Chamber, where President Joe Biden delivered his State of the Union address, Utah Sen. Mitt Romney, a 2012 Republican presidential candidate, took a jab at Santos, saying he “doesn’t belong here”. Santos has so far refused to step down.
