George Santos' time as U.S. Representative is over; however, his stop at the limelight in the American zeitgeist is not, as HBO announced its producing a movie based on the disgraced former New York Representative.
The streaming network announced that Frank Rich, the producer behind the political satire show Veep, will produce the HBO film.
According to The Guardian, the film will be based on Mark Chiusano's book The Fabulist: The Lying, Hustling, Grifting, Stealing, and Very American Legend of George Santos. Simon & Schuster, the book's publishers, describe The Fabulist as a "stranger than fiction" book that focuses on the lead-up to Santos' 2022 election win.
Other than Rich's, the only other name attached to the project is that of Mike Makowsky, who will write the screenplay for the adaptation. Makowsky's writing credits include Take Me, I Think We're Alone Now and Bad Education, a film about an embezzlement scandal that occurred in a New York School District.
HBO has not announced a release date for the movie.
Since his removal from the House of Representatives last week, Santos has not acknowledged the HBO project but has taken to X, formerly known as Twitter, to criticize other lawmakers and announce that he would be reporting other representatives to the Office of Congressional Ethics, including some who are embroiled in other controversies.
Santos stated that he would be submitting several reports to the Office of Congressional Ethics surrounding the unlawful actions of other congressional lawmakers. So far, Santos has announced that he will be reporting Nicole Malliotakis (D-NY), Mike Lawler (R-NY), Nick LaLota (R-NY) and Rob Menendez Jr. (D-NJ), the son of Bob Menéndez, who was recently indicted on bribery charges.
On Monday I will be filling an Ethics complaint against @RepMikeLawler for questionable campaign finance violations.
— George Santos (@MrSantosNY) December 2, 2023
Congressman Lawler owns portion of Checkmate Strategies and he uses the same firm that he is a beneficiary of to pay for services related to his campaign.
The…
In parallel to his expulsion from Congress, Santos is facing 23 federal indictments for wire fraud, defrauding campaign donors and several other charges.
According to the Department of Justice, the charges stem from fraud committed during the 2022 election cycle. Santos is accused of misleading the Federal Election Commission and the National Republican Party committee by producing falsified financial documents with inflated campaign fundraising numbers.
Another indictment alleges that Santos stole money from his contributors' credit cards. According to the DoJ, he attempted to charge a contributor's credit card for $44,800. In another instance, he transferred $12,000 from a different contributor's credit card to his personal bank account. The stolen money was labeled as donations from his family.
Santos is the sixth House member to be expelled from the House of Representatives. Rep. James Traficant was the previous representative removed from office in 2002 over corruption charges.
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