Disgraced ex-congressman George Santos trolls Republicans after Democrats claim his old seat

Disgraced former congressman and serial fabulist George Santos trolled the Republican party after Democrats claimed his old seat in New York’s third district.

Democratic Rep Tom Souzzi – the man who represented the district before Mr Santos won in 2022 – won back his old seat on Tuesday night in a tight race against Republican nominee Mazi Melesa Pilip.

Mr Souzzi chose not to run for re-election in 2022, instead mounting a failed primary campaign to be the Democratic nominee for governor, which he lost to incumbent Governor Kathy Hochul.

Mr Santos was ousted from Congress on 1 December after an Ethics Committee report found that there was “substantial evidence” that he had “knowingly caused his campaign committee to file false or incomplete reports with the Federal Election Commission; used campaign funds for personal purposes; engaged in fraudulent conduct in connection with RedStone Strategies LLC; and engaged in knowing and willful violations of the Ethics in Government Act as it relates to his Financial Disclosure (FD) Statements filed with the House”.

The report revealed that Mr Santos had spent around $6,000 in campaign donations at the luxury brand Ferragamo and Botox injections, according to campaign spreadsheets. It was also reported that campaign funds were used for OnlyFans subscriptions – the site best known for hosting adult content.

But, despite his own scandal-plagued and short-lived foray into politics, Mr Santos didn’t hold back over the Republican party’s loss.

He pinned a tweet on Mr Santos’s X account, which simply read “-1” – a reference to the House Republicans’ ever-tightening majority in the lower chamber, which now stands at 219 Republicans to 213 Democrats.

“I won #NY03 with $0 super PAC