Two Peas in the GOP Pod

There are striking similarities between two malignant narcissists now finally facing legal accountability

Donald Trump and George Santos. Image courtesy of Newsweek

Tuesday was a two-fer. After deliberating for only three hours, a Manhattan federal grand jury unanimously found Donald Trump liable for sexual battery and defamation and awarded author E. Jean Carroll $5 million in damages. Only a few hours later, CNN reported that the Justice Department had indicted serial fabulist Rep. George Santos in the Eastern District of New York, and Wednesday morning Santos turned himself in to authorities and was charged with 13 counts including fraud, money laundering, theft of public funds and making false statements to Congress.

For many who have been waiting for long promised accountability, this news was met with relief and a long-earned exhale. For the victims of Trump and Santos, it was a moment of vindication. Trump’s victims include not only Carroll but many other women who have come forward to accuse him of sexual assault. Santos’s victims include not just the many targets of his web of lies and fraud but the entire electorate within his district and the state of New York.

As I sat to write about the legal cases and their potential ramifications for these two men, I decided that part could wait. The more I looked at Trump and Santos, the more similarities I noticed, and those seemed worth exploring further.

Many have said, mostly in passing, that Trump and Santos represent the modern face of the GOP: greedy liars and cheats in positions of power. That is certainly the case, but today we’ll go a bit deeper so as to better understand what’s really at play here.

Malignant narcissists

It’s common to characterize Trump and Santos as conmen, grifters, gaslighters and slippery politicians. They are obsessed with money and power, as well as their own position within society. Psychologists have pointed out in the case of Trump that we are really dealing with a malignant narcissist, which is a type of narcissist who also exhibits aggression and often abuses others through manipulation or violence.

The E. Jean Carroll case brought Trump’s malignant narcissism into full public view. What kind of man, after all, banters with a woman in a department store to gain her trust, then pushes her into a dressing room where he sexually assaults her? This describes only someone whose view of himself is so high, and of others so low, that he believes he can act with impunity, ruining another person’s entire life for a moment of sadistic self-satisfaction.

For his part, George Santos used manipulation and guile to abuse his way to becoming wealthy and powerful, even if only for a short while. As reported in Time magazine, it began with forged checks from an elderly neighbor in Brazil, but it continued with stealing jewelry from his friend (whom he then called a “whale” and worse), running off with money from close relatives, dangling the prospect of immigration-related marriages, and even preying upon the trust of a disabled veteran to raise money for his sick dog—funds that Santos then kept for himself, allowing the dog to die.

These are two men who take what they want for themselves, insult and call their victims liars, and dare the system to catch up with them one day. 

It’s fair, then, to ask some tough questions. How did they succeed for so long? And why has any real accountability eluded them till now? 

Shell games

When I originally set out to lay out the case against Santos, I quickly fell into a rabbit hole. The Congressman had claimed a large amount of income and loans to his campaign in his federal election disclosures, but it has never been clear precisely where that money came from. There is the mysterious Devolder Organization, which popped up out of nowhere, apparently received significant funding from unnamed sources, paid most of it to George Santos (who also once went by Anthony Devolder, big red flag here), and then promptly shut down. 

And as Mother Jones reported, there’s also a web of interlocking companies and consultants relating to his campaign treasurer, Nancy Marks, who oversaw some truly shady accounting. Her reports, for example, frequently listed expenses at $199.99—a penny under the amount that would have required itemization.

All this reminded me of another shell game master. Donald Trump is well known for using hundreds of companies to operate the Trump Organization. This has allowed him not only to evade significant income taxes but also to inflate, hide or otherwise misrepresent the true value of his holdings in order to obtain favorable loans. That practice is currently the subject of a New York State civil action led by Attorney General Letitia James. 

The practice of cooking the books also resulted in a recent jury verdict in Manhattan against the Trump Organization on 17 counts of tax-related fraud. Trump’s CFO, Allen Weisselberg, testified against the company and served a short stint in jail on Rikers Island, even while remaining unwilling to point a finger at Trump himself. I suspect that Weisselberg is to Trump as Marks is to Santos, and that we will be hearing from Marks in the near future as a witness or co-defendant in the Santos case.

The complexity of the enterprises working to hide the misdeeds of both Santos and Trump make it far more difficult for prosecutors to pursue investigations, at least without enormous resources and patience. Trump has the added advantage of a near limitless legal fund that pays for armies of lawyers and accountants to throw up roadblocks and delays. 

Confidence men

The two men share another disturbing talent: the ability to play the long con in order to get and keep the dollars flowing.

From Trump University to the Big Lie, Trump has a record of peddling falsehoods to the public and reaping the rewards from it. When caught, as he was with Trump University, he simply pays the fine, shrugs and moves onto the next money grab. The Big Lie is his crowning achievement, pulling in some $250 million in donations toward a legal defense fund that really just lined the coffers of his political action committee—a scheme the January 6 Committee dubbed the “Big Rip-off.” Trump also leveraged the Big Lie to spearhead a conspiracy to submit false electoral college slates in order to provide a pretense to overturn the 2020 election—a move at the center of the likely criminal indictments by a Fulton County grand jury later this summer.

Trump’s multiple legal jeopardies, however, have been a financial boon to his campaign. He leverages them ruthlessly, playing the aggrieved victim to squeeze millions more donated dollars from his MAGA base. Following his false announcement that he was going to be arrested on “Tuesday,” Trump raised millions from outraged supporters. When charges were finally brought, his fundraising went into overdrive, with some $15.4 million raised in the two weeks that followed the indictment, according to reporting by Politico.

Santos is often described as a “fabulist,” but this masks his true nature and intent. Before he became a Congressman, George Anthony Devolder Santos ripped off the public by setting up gofundme and other fundraising campaigns for nonexistent charitable causes. For example, he claimed he had founded a charity called “Friends of Pets United” that had rescued some 2,500 dogs. But there is no record of any such charity. All the raffles and gift basket sales, which were supposed to go toward animal welfare, apparently went to George Santos aka Anthony Devolder instead, per reporting by the New York Times. 

His made-up college education, false claims of Jewish heritage and fake resume, including nonexistent jobs at Citigroup and Goldman Sachs, became the subject of late night television jokes. But there was a very serious consequence to all the lying. Specifically, through his false background, Santos was able to elevate himself into national politics as a candidate. He then deployed his campaign to solicit donations and move enormous sums of money around, the origins of which is still very much in doubt. As Mother Jones reported, Santos listed around a dozen donors on his disclosures who did not appear to even exist, along with others (including a mailman, a student and a relative) who supposedly gave thousands of dollars when in fact they had made no such donations. But flush with money and the backing of his party, he had all the trappings of an accomplished man and genuine candidate. And with that wind at his back, he won his congressional race in New York. 

Russian money

Men like Santos and Trump are easy marks for our foreign enemies. They can be quickly bought, easily controlled and fully owned.

Trump’s ties to Russian money have been extensively reported elsewhere, but if you need a primer, I suggest reading the excellent summary, “How Russian Money Helped Save Trump’s Business” from Foreign Policy. Succinctly put, Trump was facing financial ruin in the 1990s, and he only made it through because of sudden influxes of money from the oligarchs. The true cost of that support is still being felt and assessed today, as Trump continues to defend and cozy up to Putin, even after his brutal invasion of Ukraine.

As with Trump, some of the questionable Santos money appears to have Russian oligarch ties as well. Per reporting by the Washington Post, Santos has ties to a cousin of sanctioned billionaire Viktor Vekselberg, Andrew Intrater, who was also once involved with Trump’s one-time fixer, Michael Cohen. Intrater and his wife each gave the maximum contribution permitted to Santos’s main campaign committee, along with tens of thousands more to committees linked to Santos. Intrater also funded the former employer of Santos, Harbor City Capital, to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars. Harbor City is currently facing accusations by SEC regulators for being a Ponzi scheme.

Protection 

Both Trump and Santos have been able to stay where they are and enjoy the privileges of their position and authority as long as they have because other powerful men have been willing to protect them. 

One clear example for Trump is Mitch McConnell, the former Majority Leader of the Senate. After Trump’s second impeachment, McConnell had the power to lead his caucus to a conviction of Trump. That would have been the end of Trump’s political career, because a senate conviction can carry with it a lifetime ban from future federal office. McConnell, still believing somehow he could harness the energy of the MAGA base through Trump, decided to let him off. It was a mistake of epic proportion and huge consequence. Today, Trump is once again the leading candidate for the Republican presidential nomination. He also misses no chance to belittle McConnell, even calling his Chinese-born wife racist names to taunt him.

Another protection man for Trump was former Attorney General Bill Barr, who regularly put his finger on the scales of justice for the former president. The most notable instances were his mischaracterizing of the Mueller Report and his departing the Justice Department, which he did rather than publicly challenge Trump’s election denialism. That cowardice nearly led to a coup within the Department and helped fuel the attack upon the Capitol on January 6, 2021.

For Santos, his protector is Speaker Kevin McCarthy. With all the scandal and lies surrounding Santos, most of which he has already copped to, McCarthy could have done the right thing and demanded his resignation. The House has the power to expel a member by a two-thirds vote, and it would have the immediate support of all the Democrats and likely enough Republicans had McCarthy asked for it. But McCarthy’s razor-thin majority in the House couldn’t afford any further erosion. Without Santos’s vote, for example, McCarthy would not have been elected Speaker. Without Santos’s vote, the GOP debt ceiling bill would not have passed last week.

Now, McCarthy is determined to keep Santos in Congress for as long as possible rather than demand his resignation. On Tuesday, McCarthy said to reporters that federal indictments alone would not be cause enough to remove him, and that he will only call for his resignation once Santos is actually found guilty.

Some important lessons

In my mind, Santos is an alternative version of Trump—had the latter been born a poor, gay man living in Brazil. To both, the lure of money has been so all-consuming that, for all their lives, they were willing to abuse, grift and long con their way to having more of it. 

But money by itself has never been enough. With it came power and attention, two drugs that were even more seductive. With their growing power, both acted with impunity and cruelty. Santos didn’t care whom he robbed or deceived so long as it served his goal of becoming the famous, rich person he always saw himself as. Trump’s abuses horrifically extended to his conduct toward women, many of whom have credibly accused him of sexual assault, and one of whom just won a massive jury verdict against him.

Santos’s lies and cons have been discovered. He is being held to account before he can inflict even greater damage, though what he has done so far has already changed the trajectory of our national politics. Trump, by contrast, has never faced true accountability until very recently. The rot that Trump represents is very deeply rooted, so it will understandably take far more time and effort to clear it out. 

When dealing with future malignant narcissists seeking positions of power, we need to keep the lessons of Trump and Santos in mind and ask some important questions. Are they currently abusing their power and position? What complex shell games might exist to hide their possible crimes? What lies are they telling in service of long cons? Where is all the money coming from? And who is trying to protect them?

Had we asked these questions more rigorously, we may not have wound up with either Trump or Santos in high office. Our responsibility from here forward is to ask these questions before such figures rise to prominence. America will never be fully rid of men like Donald Trump and George Santos. We can only hope to see accountability today, and in the future to handle them far better.