Published: January 4, 2023
Rep.-elect George Santos (R-NY) has been unmasked as purveyor of so many falsehoods, it’s really hard to know where the fiction ends and the real person begins. He has also, perhaps unknowingly, walked the Republic back into a security concern it has previously failed to resolve.
In 2009, then-Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA) allegedly acted in a manner that triggered concerns of foreign influence from Israel. During the 2017 congressional oversight hearings into alleged Russian attempts to influence American elections, then-Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA)—who was also the chair of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence—was accused, and cleared, of security concerns relating to the handling of classified information.
And in 2021, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) acted in a manner which gave rise to accusations relating to their allegiance to the United States following the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
The parameters set by Congress regarding who is eligible for access to classified information are a standard for the Republic; Americans look at congressional access and see in it permission to abide by the security regulations, or they’ll see in it permission to leak.
