Republican George Santos resigns from two congressional committees until the controversy over his life is clarified

Republican representative George Santos, this Tuesday at the Capitol, in Washington. EVELYN HOCKSTEIN (REUTERS)

Overwhelmed by an accumulation of lies that had grown fat like a snowball, Republican George Santos, who was elected a member of the House of Representatives in the November elections, announced this Tuesday his resignation from the two parliamentary committees to which he had been assigned, until the controversy around his fabulations dies down.

The decision of the 34-year-old congressman, communicated to his peers in a closed-door party meeting and announced by

, is known the same day as a poll in his electoral district, Long Island (New York), according to which more than three-quarters of voters (78%) believe that he should resign, according to a Newsday- Sienna College.

On January 12, Santos said without much conviction that he would resign if 142,000 people - the number of votes he obtained in November - asked him to.

The accumulation of inventions and misrepresentations about his resume and his personal history has ended up taking its toll on Santos, an exponent of the most conservative faction of the Republican Party.

The congressman himself has assumed in recent weeks that part of the data referring to his life is false and, according to his testimony at the Republican meeting, he does not want to be "a distraction" for the party.

But it is a grudging concession, as indicated by his intention to resign only temporarily.

The endorsement of the new speaker of the House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy, in return for the support of Santos during his election, has been decisive in the face of growing public scrutiny.

Santos' decision comes after he met with McCarthy on Monday.

“I met yesterday [por este lunes] with George Santos and I think it is an appropriate decision that until everything is clarified, I do not participate in the committees,” McCarthy told reporters after the closed-door meeting.

The president of the Chamber affirmed that the places initially reserved for Santos could be filled "temporarily", and added that the New Yorker "will be able to form part of the committees again" once he has been acquitted of the investigation by the Ethics Commission of the camera.

McCarthy's support goes so far as to venture that the Ethics Commission's ruling will clear Santos' name of all blemishes.

The leadership of his party in Nassau County, to which Long Island belongs, has been showing Santos the exit door for weeks.

The Nassau district attorney, also a Republican, has opened an investigation, one of several underway, at the local and federal levels, against him, in addition to that of the Ethics Committee.

Nebraska Rep. Don Bacon said Santos confirmed McCarthy's version of a "temporary" withdrawal until "things get straightened out," according to

website , for parliamentary information.

“And he asked that we support him when everything is arranged so that he can be part of the committees,” the ultraconservative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a representative from Georgia and very close to the McCarthy spokeswoman, told reporters after the meeting.

The House Republican Party Steering Committee, the party's committee-setting body, had assigned Santos to the Small Business Committee and the Science, Space and Technology Committee earlier this month, two minor committees but even so, too important for the one who faces a whirlwind of criticism for the numerous inventions not only on his resume, but also on his personal finances -he said he was the attorney for family properties, but the truth is that he shared a flat with strangers in Queens- and the origin of his campaign funds.

According to Taylor Greene, the resignation of Santos helps not to distract the efforts of the Republican leadership in the House, which is especially committed to winning support to prevent the presence in the Foreign Affairs committee of the Democratic representative Ilhan Omar - known for her criticisms to the traditional White House support for Israel - a move that has aroused some opposition within the Republican conference.

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