What happens when Rep.-elect George Santos of New York goes to Washington, DC, in January will be a real test of today’s Republican Party. Does honesty and integrity matter at all? Or is GOP leadership so power-hungry that it will allow a serial fabulist to remain in office despite deceiving the public – and the voters who elected him – about key aspects of his biography?

While running for office, Santos, who was elected in a district in New York that encompasses Long Island suburbs and parts of Queens, had either lied or been strangely cagey about everything from where he lived to which college he graduated from to where he worked to what his religious background was.

The New York Times published an investigation of Santos’s web of lies earlier this month, and got a very Trumpian attack-the-messenger denial from Santos’ lawyer who, instead of providing any clarity or specific factual denials, simply said that it is “no surprise that Congressman-elect Santos has enemies at The New York Times who are attempting to smear his good name with these defamatory allegations.”