Former Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) called on Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) to step down on Thursday, as the embattled first-term lawmaker faces increasing pressure to resign over revelations that he misrepresented parts of his background.
“This isn’t an embellished candidacy,” Ryan told CNN’s Jake Tapper. “It’s a fraudulent candidacy. He hoaxed his voters, so of course he should step down.“
Ryan is the latest of several Republicans to urge Santos to resign, including five fellow first-term lawmakers from New York, Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) and the local Nassau County GOP chairman.
“George Santos’s campaign last year was a campaign of deceit, lies and fabrication,” Nassau County Republican Chairman Joseph Cairo said on Wednesday. “Today I am calling for his immediate resignation.”
However, Santos has so far bucked requests to step down, and Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has declined to echo the calls for his resignation.
“I try to stick by the Constitution,” McCarthy told reporters on Wednesday. “The voters elected him to serve. If there is a concern, and he has to go through the Ethics [Committee], let him move through that.”
Santos has faced a firestorm of criticism since it was revealed last month that he made false claims about his heritage, education and professional career on the campaign trail. Both the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York and the Nassau County district attorney have opened investigations into the lawmaker in the wake of the revelations.
Since Santos was officially sworn in last week, a nonpartisan ethics watchdog organization has also filed a complaint with the Federal Elections Commission over possible campaign finance violations committed by the lawmaker, and two House Democrats have filed a complaint with the House Ethics Committee.