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The New York congressman George Santos competed as a drag queen in Brazilian beauty pageants 15 years ago, two acquaintances have said, drawing further attention to the contrast between the Republican’s past actions and his staunchly conservative views.
The embattled freshman congressman, who is gay, also faces calls from Democrats and his fellow New York Republicans to step down over fabrications about his career and history and amid reports of investigations at local, state and federal level in the US and in Brazil over the use of a stolen cheque book.
Democrats in Congress and various organisations have called for investigations of Santos’s campaign finances, asking when Republican leaders knew of his falsehoods and chequered past.
But Santos supported the Republican speaker, Kevin McCarthy, through 15 rounds of voting for the position, which McCarthy now holds with a slim majority.
