A U.S. congressman who sings about his past says he wants to resign from a key Capitol Hill committee.
George Santos has been refusing to resign from the U.S. House of Representatives after it was discovered that he had fabricated claims about his background.
Under mounting pressure to step down, he is now telling fellow Republicans that he wants to recuse himself from committee assignments until his “issues are resolved,” according to party members who attended the meeting.
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Mr Santos faces separate investigations into his finances and campaign finance, in addition to ongoing questions about lies about his past job, education and family background.
The 34-year-old House member has been offered a seat on the Congressional Science and Small Business Committee.
However, a spokesman for Mr Santos said he wanted “clarification” about the investigation into his campaign and financial affairs.
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Mr. Santos was elected to the House of Representatives in November, but his short tenure in office has been plagued by repeated unmasking lies in his self-made backstory.
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What claim did Santos make?
- He claims his grandparents survived the Holocaust, but genealogy research has found no evidence of their Jewish ancestry. Mr Santos then claimed he never claimed to be Jewish, just “Jewish”.
- He said his mother was at the World Trade Center during the 9/11 attacks, but immigration records show she was out of the country at the time.
- His claims to be a Wall Street banker have been discredited by the employers he listed on his resume.
- He said he was a volleyball star at Baruch College in New York, but the school said it had no record of him.
- Brazil’s drag performers say they remember drag queen mr santos, named Kitara Ravache. When asked, Mr Santos told reporters he was just “having fun at the festival”.
“Deceit, lies and fabrications”
Both Republicans and his Democratic opponents have called on Mr. Santos to resign from Congress.
In Nassau County, New York, where he was elected, local Republicans called for his resignation, calling his campaign one of “deceit, lies and fabrications.”
However, Santos still has the support of Republican veterans on Capitol Hill, who need his seat to maintain a slim majority in the House.