House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said that he “always” had some questions about Rep. George Santos’s (R-N.Y.) résumé, showing some of his first apprehension about the first-term New York representative weeks after revelations of Santos’s vast fabrications about his background.
“I always had a few questions about it,” McCarthy told CNN on Capitol Hill on Monday, referring to Santos’s résumé.
McCarthy also commented about a person working for Santos who allegedly impersonated McCarthy’s chief of staff to solicit campaign donations during his 2020 and 2022 campaigns.
“You know, I didn’t know about that. It happened, and I know they corrected it, but I was not notified about that until a later date,” McCarthy said.
McCarthy added that he had talked to Santos about the impersonation.
The comments from McCarthy follow a CNN report saying that Dan Conston, president of the McCarthy-aligned Congressional Leadership Fund PAC, had expressed concerns about Santos to lawmakers and donors, citing an unnamed source.
McCarthy has declined to call for Santos to resign over his résumé fabrications and embellishments, though several other New York House Republicans have.
“I try to stick by the Constitution. The voters elected him to serve. If there is a concern, and he has to go through the Ethics, let him move through that,” McCarthy told reporters last week, referring to the House Ethics Committee.
“He is going to have to build the trust here, and he’s going to have the opportunity to try to do that,” McCarthy said.