If he has not already, New York’s First Congressional District Representative Nick LaLota will soon cross paths with George Santos, the Republican fabulist from UpIsland, whose lifetime of lies was exposed by The New York Times in late December. The possibility of a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation into Mr. Santos’s work for a Ponzi-like investment firm did not keep House Speaker Kevin McCarthy from naming him — unbelievably — to the Committee on Small Business and the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology. Mr. LaLota has his own high-profile assignments, Armed Services and Homeland Security.
While Mr. LaLota might be new to Congress, we expect he will take his roles seriously. Mr. Santos will be another matter, having apparently few skills other than as a con artist. But he was far from the only head-scratching committee appointment: Speaker McCarthy named the QAnon-favorite Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia to Homeland Security and Representative Paul Gosar of Arizona to the House Committee on Natural Resources. Both Ms. Greene and Mr. Gosar had been removed from committee posts for making incendiary statements about Democratic elected officials.
In 2021, the House censured Mr. Gosar and removed him from his committees after he posted a social media video showing him appearing to kill Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and attacking President Biden. Ms. Greene also drew censure and lost her committee seats, in part, over her embrace of right-wing conspiracies, including one that held that the 9/11 attack on the Pentagon was faked. She also compared the Democratic mega-donor George Soros to a Nazi, and said the 2018 midterms were like an “Islamic invasion of our government,” among other insanities.
Among this lowlife crew, Mr. LaLota stands tall, as he did when he called on Mr. Santos to resign, one of only a handful of Republican members of the House to do so. We hope he will continue to be independent and put country ahead of party and eastern Long Island ahead of the steaming Washington cowflop. Mr. Santos — well, he has already stepped in it, all the way up to his lying mouth.