Politics
Blade’s Q&A with American Library Association President Emily Drabinski
Conversation comes after a week of battles over book bans on Capitol Hill
American Library Association President Emily Drabinski was in Washington for the PFLAG National “Learning with Love” Convention, whose timing and theme are particularly apposite this year given the escalating fight this week on Capitol Hill over book bans.
She connected with the Washington Blade Saturday morning to discuss matters including how best to combat efforts to pull books from library shelves and ways to help restore public faith in the these institutions along with the qualified professionals serving in them.
Drabinski on Wednesday was named to the Out 100 2023 list, which celebrates the year’s “most impactful and influential LGBTQ+ people” and has included some of the most famous and celebrated public figures.
The honor comes about 16 months after Drabinski was named ALA president and then immediately earned right-wing backlash for a celebratory tweet in which she reflected on the significance of her election as a lesbian with progressive views.
Among the first to speak out against her over the tweet was a co-founder of Moms for Liberty, the anti-LGBTQ group that promotes book bans, opposes public support and funding for libraries and other institutions, and is considered a far-right extremist group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. It was not long before elected Republican officials followed suit.
These critics often argue for their right to hold and express political opinions as they wish while claiming that others are unsuited for high profile roles because they hold or have shared views they find objectionable, those that are left-of-center, said Drabinski, who acknowledged homophobia also played a role in the outrage directed at her.
At the same time, Drabinski stressed that her focus remains on the responsibilities of leading the ALA, many of whose 49,000+ members have also been personally targeted by school boards, elected officials, and advocacy groups like Moms for Liberty.
The ALA is not alone in raising the alarm over the alignment of these parties and interests in favor of censoring certain ideas and voices, a movement which according to PEN America has led to an unprecedented number and range of titles being pulled from library shelves across the country.
“These efforts are a threat to student’s rights and freedoms,” according to a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Education, whose Office of Civil Rights last month appointed Deputy Assistant Secretary Matt Nosanchuk whose duties include responding to book bans, taking “enforcement action when necessary.”
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
American Library Association President Emily Drabinski
October 21, 2023 Interview with the Washington Blade’s White House correspondent, Christopher Kane.
Washington Blade: Reading about the backlash you encountered, I was reminded of Gigi Sohn’s confirmation process in the Senate and how ugly that got. I’m curious to hear how your experience with this may have impacted the way that you look at whether and how to share your political views publicly. And more broadly, as the issues that are top of mind and front and center for ALA are becoming really politically fraught, how you look at the intersection of politics with your work?
Emily Drabinski: It’s a question I think about constantly. You know, I think everybody has a political viewpoint, all of us do, and my political views inform how I think about the world and how I explain the world to myself, but the American Library Association isn’t about me. The status of American libraries is not about me. Attacks on the right to read and and libraries in general, they might have my name on them, but they’re clearly not about me.
What’s been frustrating is to see the whole entire Association — which is about what libraries are about, which is building community; it’s about collective action and collectives of people coming together. [So], to see the focus on me as an individual has been really distressing.
It’s also not lost on me which ideas you can have, which identities you can have, or which you can write — like what political viewpoint will get you this kind of blowback. And it’s not everybody, right? It’s only some of us. You know, they’re all about freedom of thought and they’re all against cancellation of individuals for their viewpoints, and yet they don’t extend that to people from across the political spectrum.
Blade: You mentioned the issue of which identities are allowed. The homophobia seems not to be lingering beneath the surface; this is really tinged with homophobia.
Drabinski: Absolutely. When the Montana Library Commission voted to not renew their membership with the American Library Association, that was about my queer identity as much as it was about anything else.
Regardless of what they said, when you listen back to the hearing, there were that someone on the call quoting Leviticus — which felt like, you know, so, so regressive, and a kind of conversation about queer identity that I had, that I remember us having in the 90s. And I thought we were in a different kind of world, but it’s like the book bans — there are obvious attacks on black people, people of color, indigenous people, and LGBTQ+ people. And so it’s no surprise that they’ve come from for me also, I suppose.
Blade: Did you meet with lawmakers when you were in Washington, and can you tell me about what your advocacy work has looked like recently?
Drabinski: I did not meet with lawmakers. I was here to be at PFLAG. ALA continues to work with lawmakers, and I think it’s important to say across the political spectrum, you know, we there’s broad bipartisan support for libraries. That’s always been true. And so we work with people from all sides of the aisle around the right to read. So, you know, I don’t want it to seem like the politicization of libraries is coming from the Republican Party in general. I think we all know it’s from a minority of people that don’t represent the broad political spectrum in this country.
Blade: And those voices have become, I think, amplified on social media. You’ve certainly had experiences with Moms for Liberty. I’m curious to hear your thoughts about the group and its influence and maybe some of the ways that that that might be countered, you know, from the left.
Drabinski: I don’t follow the group very closely, you know, just because I think that their work — they want to sort of sow chaos, I think, inside of public institutions, including schools and libraries. They’re very well funded; their funding is difficult to track. They clearly aren’t local, right? You have in many libraries Moms for Liberty groups trying to ban books when they’re not even members of the community.
But I think what we can learn from them is what it means to be loud, right? They have a tiny number of people who are very, very loud and draw a lot of attention and in some cases can drown out the other side at various school and library board meetings. But what I’m seeing on the ground when I travel around the country is that once people understand what is happening in their libraries, they are quick to mobilize against it.
Even in southern Louisiana, right, near the gulf where you had St. Tammany Parish, the story of the attacks on the libraries there which have been definitely driven by these organized groups. [The state’s Attorney General] Jeff Landry [created] a tip line where you can report on your librarians and teachers for distributing, you know, inappropriate materials or whatever. He campaigns on this issue in St. Tammany, but even in St. Tammany, the community is organized to fight back and you see books now making their way back to the shelf.
So, I think that there’s something for us to learn — that we need to be as loud as they are. We know we’ve got numbers on our side. As long as we can get everybody out to the meeting when the decisions are being made, as long as we can get people who are pro-library, pro-reading and pro-freedom, frankly, in positions of authority in local government and on library boards, I think we’re gonna win because poll after poll shows that that nobody’s against children reading. You just can’t be.
Blade: I’m reminded now of your comments during last night’s panel discussion at the PFLAG conference about the importance of these library board elections. Do you think that there’s more work to be done to build out an infrastructure of grassroots organizing around these issues in the same way that Moms for Liberty has done?
Drabinski: Yeah, I think so. I think that’s the way to win, right, is to have densely organized people on the ground who have a vision of a world that’s about equality and equal access to public resources. We have the desire to have people live on our side. Most people want those things. But the one thing I would push back against is the idea that we don’t have organized entities doing that kind of work already. I think we’ve paid less attention to those movements than we should.
So, for example, in St Tammany Queer North Shore is a social group that has been organized around all the things that LGBTQ+ people do, hanging out with each other, going to potlucks, go to parties, or making a float for the Mardi Gras parade — but then they also see what’s happening in their local library and they organize quickly and got a lot of the community out to support the library.
There’s a recent story in Convergence Magazine that talks about a library in Danvers, Massachusetts where they had people organized to protest a drag queen makeup hour, where they were gonna teach you how to put on makeup, which is such a great program, right? And 350 people showed up from the organized labor community, the faith community, the other related movements like the environmental movement, in that area. They showed up en masse to protect the library and formed a human chain, a human wall around a library to keep the 11 protesters away.
So I think sometimes the stories we tell overemphasize the power that groups like Moms for Liberty have, when we have lots of examples that I think get a little less airtime, where you see organized people who care about libraries showing up and and winning.
Blade: There’s also this persistent problem of declining faith in expertise and institutional knowledge. How do you think the media could do a better job of relaying information about these topics?
Drabinski: Every time I see a profile of — you know that profile in the Post of like the 11 people who are behind the vast majority of book ban attempts? I want every one of those profiles to be matched by a profile of a school or public or academic librarian who is doing critical, community based, community focused work to make life better for people.
We’re very activated around the book banners, but we don’t pay enough attention to the parts and places where we’re winning. And so I think a better understanding of what librarians do every day, and what library workers contribute to their community…I see all of this attention being paid to us around the books and stuff. And I want to use this moment to tell the stories of American libraries that are bigger and better and greater than that.
When I go around to libraries and talk to library workers, and they show what they’re doing — everything from a library in Ames, Iowa, [where] you can borrow a pair of reading glasses in the library in case you forgot yours. Like, a little example of the library solving a problem for people and every every library will have like in that same library. And in that library in Ames, there were like 15 other things that were evidence that librarians were solving problems for the community. So I think it’s really important to tell those kinds of stories and they’re a little less sexy, I think, than the meanness, but I think they’re also really important.
That expertise piece, you know, I heard this like stat many years ago about Flickr, the old photo site, the most popular tag on on Flickr was “me,” the word “me,” because people wanted to be able to click on the word and find pictures of themselves. People, right? We curate worlds for ourselves, which is [not shameful]; we all do it.
But what library workers do is they think about everybody at once. They think about the public and think about meeting the needs of the public. So even the “parent’s rights” thing, like I’m a parent. I have rights. I have a child that I want to protect and the idea that by giving my child access to a diverse range of reading materials, which is absolutely a priority in my household, that that would somehow be an attack on someone else’s children. It’s like my librarians know and understand and appreciate publics in a way that nobody else does.
If we could talk more about that public and the service that libraries provide, it would be good for all of us to be thinking about other people rather than so much about our individual solitary worldviews.
I find that when I tell stories about what’s happening in public libraries to people, they’re blown away. Like, there’s a library where you can check out a cotton candy machine in Donnelly Idaho — rural Donnelly, Idaho, a town of like, I don’t know, 4000 people, the vast majority of whom are living below the poverty line.
The library is a public entity that makes it possible for everybody to have a birthday party. And, once a month, they get queer kids together for like after=hours hangout time and they’ve got three or four kids who show up and it’s the only place in the community where they can use the names that they have for themselves and the pronouns that they use for themselves without fear of reprisal. And that’s the work of the library, making that possible.
I think if we could tell more of those stories, of what libraries really do — which is absolutely not distribute pornography — that is not what any library is doing, I absolutely promise you that. It’s not happening.
Blade: For me, the question of who ought to decide things like which materials should be made available to young people and of which ages is settled just with the knowledge that librarians are required to have master’s degrees. But there are many people who refuse to defer to the expertise of medical doctors. Is the kind of storytelling you were describing a way to get around this problem?
Drabinski: Yeah, but you erode trust in public institutions, and you defund them over 40 years of organized disinvestment in the public sector, and then you find that they are weakened. And then you say, this institution is weak and failing, and then you attack it. And we’ve seen this again and again, libraries aren’t the first and we won’t be the last. I think we have a lot to learn from public education, because they came for the teachers at schools first, and now they’ve come for us.
Blade: Absolutely, and in the arts more broadly. I’m thinking of Jesse Helms’s crusade against the National Endowment for the Arts in the 80s.
Drabinski: Totally. we’ve been here before, you know, but I think for a lot of us — I was talking to a couple of other PFLAG-ers this morning, and we can’t believe we’re here again.
Blade: The word “unprecedented” is cropping up a lot lately…
Drabinski: Who doesn’t love a library? Everybody loves the library, right? This attack on a much beloved public institution and the people who steward that institution, that feels unprecedented to me. I had no idea that the world would turn against us in this way; it’s been challenging.
Congress
Advocates say MTG bill threatens trans youth, families, and doctors
The “Protect Children’s Innocence” Act passed in the House
Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene has a long history of targeting the transgender community as part of her political agenda. Now, after announcing her resignation from the U.S. House of Representatives, attempting to take away trans rights may be the last thing she does in her official capacity.
The proposed legislation, dubbed “Protect Children’s Innocence Act” is among the most extreme anti-trans measures to move through Congress. It would put doctors in jail for up to 10 years if they provide gender-affirming care to minors — including prescribing hormone replacement therapy to adolescents or puberty blockers to younger children. The bill also aims to halt gender-affirming surgeries for minors, though those procedures are rare.
Greene herself described the bill on X, saying if passed, “it would make it a Class C felony to trans a child under 18.”
According to KFF, a nonpartisan source for health policy research, polling, and journalism, 27 states have enacted policies limiting youth access to gender-affirming care. Roughly half of all trans youth ages 13–17 live in a state with such restrictions, and 24 states impose professional or legal penalties on health care practitioners who provide that care.
Greene has repeatedly introduced the bill since 2021, the year she entered Congress, but it failed to advance. Now, in exchange for her support for the National Defense Authorization Act, the legislation reached the House floor for the first time.
According to the 19th, U.S. Rep. Sarah McBride (D-Del.), the first trans member of Congress, rebuked Republicans on the Capitol steps Wednesday for advancing anti-trans legislation while allowing Affordable Care Act tax credits to expire — a move expected to raise health care costs for millions of Americans.
“They would rather have us focus in and debate a misunderstood and vulnerable one percent of the population, instead of focusing in on the fact that they are raiding everyone’s health care,” McBride said. “They are obsessed with trans people … they are consumed with this.”
Polling suggests the public largely opposes criminalizing gender-affirming care.
A recent survey by the Human Rights Campaign and Global Strategy Group found that 73 percent of voters in U.S. House battleground districts oppose laws that would jail doctors or parents for providing transition-related care. Additionally, 77 percent oppose forcing trans people off medically recommended medication. Nearly seven in 10 Americans said politicians are not informed enough to make decisions about medical care for trans youth.
The bill passed the House and now heads to the U.S. Senate for further consideration.
According to reporting by Erin Reed of Erin In The Morning, three Democrats — U.S. Reps. Henry Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez of Texas and Don Davis of North Carolina — crossed party lines to vote in favor of the felony ban, joining 213 Republicans. A total of 207 Democrats voted against the bill, while three lawmakers from both parties abstained.
Advocates and lawmakers warned the bill is dangerous and unprecedented during a multi-organizational press call Tuesday. Leaders from the Human Rights Campaign and the Trevor Project joined U.S. Rep. Becca Balint (D-Vt.), Dr. Kenneth Haller, and parents of trans youth to discuss the potential impact of restrictive policies like Greene’s — particularly in contrast to President Donald Trump’s leniency toward certain criminals, with more than 1,500 pardons issued this year.
“Our MAGA GOP government has pardoned drug traffickers. They’ve pardoned people who tried to overthrow the government on January 6, but now they want to put pediatricians and parents into a jail cell for caring for their kids,” said Human Rights Campaign President Kelley Robinson. “No one asked for Marjorie Taylor Greene or Dan Crenshaw or any politician to be in their doctor’s office, and they should mind their own business.”
Balint, co-chair of the Congressional Equality Caucus, questioned why medical decisions are being made by lawmakers with no clinical expertise.
“Parents and doctors already have to worry about state laws banning care for their kids, and this bill would introduce the risk of federal criminal prosecution,” Balint said. “We’re talking about jail time. We’re talking about locking people up for basic medical care, care that is evidence-based, age-appropriate and life-saving.”
“These are decisions that should be made by doctors and parents and those kids that need this gender-affirming care, not certainly by Marjorie Taylor Greene.”
Haller, an emeritus professor of pediatrics at St. Louis University School of Medicine, described the legislation as rooted in ideology rather than medicine.
“It is not science, it is just blind ideology,” Haller said.
“The doctor tells you that as parents, as well as the doctor themselves, could be convicted of a felony and be sentenced up to 10 years in prison just for pursuing a course of action that will give your child their only chance for a happy and healthy future,” he added. “It is not in the state’s best interests, and certainly not in the interests of us, the citizens of this country, to interfere with medical decisions that people make about their own bodies and their own lives.”
Haller’s sentiment is echoed by doctors across the country.
The American Medical Association, the nation’s largest organization that represents doctors across the country in various parts of medicine has a longstanding support for gender-affirming care.
“The AMA supports public and private health insurance coverage for treatment of gender dysphoria and opposes the denial of health insurance based on sexual orientation or gender identity,” their website reads.
Rodrigo Heng-Lehtinen, senior vice president of public engagement campaigns at the Trevor Project, agreed.
“In Marjorie Taylor Greene’s bill [it] even goes so far as to criminalize and throw a parent in jail for this,” Heng-Lehtinen said. “Medical decisions should be between patients, families, and their doctors.”
Rachel Gonzalez, a parent of a transgender teen and LGBTQ advocate, said the bill would harm families trying to act in their children’s best interests.
“No politician should be in any doctor’s office or in our living room making private health care decisions — especially not Marjorie Taylor Greene,” Gonzalez said. “My daughter and no trans youth should ever be used as a political pawn.”
Other LGBTQ rights activists also condemned the legislation.
Tyler Hack, executive director of the Christopher Street Project, called the bill “an abominable attack on the transgender community.”
“Marjorie Taylor Greene’s last-ditch effort to bring her 3-times failed bill to a vote is an abominable attack on the transgender community and further cements a Congressional career defined by hate and bigotry,” they said. “We are counting down the days until she’s off Capitol Hill — but as the bill goes to the floor this week, our leaders must stand up one last time to her BS and protect the safety of queer kids and medical providers. Full stop.”
Hack added that “healthcare is a right, not a privilege” in the U.S., and this attack on trans healthcare is an attack on queer rights altogether.
“Marjorie Taylor Greene has no place in deciding what care is necessary,” Hack added. “This is another attempt to legislate trans and queer people out of existence while peddling an agenda rooted in pseudoscience and extremism.”
U.S. Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.), chair of the Congressional Equality Caucus, also denounced the legislation.
“This bill is the most extreme anti-transgender legislation to ever pass through the House of Representatives and a direct attack on the rights of parents to work with their children and their doctors to provide them with the medical care they need,” Takano said. “This bill is beyond cruel and its passage will forever be a stain on the institution of the United States Congress.”
The bill is unlikely to advance in the Senate, where it would need 60 votes to pass.
Politics
LGBTQ Democrats say they’re ready to fight to win in 2026
DNC winter meetings took place last weekend in Los Angeles
The Democratic National Committee held its annual winter meetings in Downtown Los Angeles over the weekend, and queer Democrats showed up with a clear message for the national organization: don’t abandon queer and transgender people.
Following last year’s disastrous presidential and congressional elections, many influential pundits and some powerful lawmakers called on Democrats to distance the party from unpopular positions on trans rights, in order to win swing districts by wooing more conservative voters.
But members of the DNC’s LGBTQ Caucus say that’s actually a losing strategy.
“There are still parts of our party saying we need to abandon trans people in order to win elections, which is just not provable, actually. It’s just some feelings from some old consultants in DC,” LGBTQ Caucus Chair Sean Meloy says.
Some national Democrats are already backtracking from suggestions that they walk back on trans rights.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom grabbed national attention in March when he suggested that it was “deeply unfair” for trans girls to play in women’s sports. But last week, he doubled down on support for trans rights, claiming to have signed more trans-rights legislation than any governor in the country, and entering into feuds on X with Elon Musk and Nicki Minaj over his support for trans kids.
Democrats are also clearly feeling the wind in their sails recently after major election victories in Virginia and New Jersey last month, as well as victories in dozens of local and state legislative elections across the country in 2025.
“[Abigail] Spanberger in Virginia didn’t win by dodging the trans question. She won by attacking it, confronting it, and that’s how she got ahead,” says Vivian Smotherman, a trans activist and at-large member of the DNC’s LGBTQ Caucus.
“Trans people are not a problem. We are a resource,” Smotherman says. “For my community, surviving into adulthood is not a guarantee, it’s an accomplishment. You don’t walk through a survival gauntlet without learning things … I’m not begging the DNC to protect my community. I’m here to remind you that we are the warriors tempered by fire, and we are fully capable of helping this party win.”
At its own meeting on Friday, the LGBTQ Caucus announced several new initiatives to ensure that queer and trans issues stay top of mind for the DNC as it gears up for the midterm elections next year.
One plan is to formalize the DNC’s Trans Advisory Board as distinct from the LGBTQ Caucus, to help introduce candidates across the country to trans people and trans issues.
“One in three people in this country know a trans person. Two-thirds of Americans don’t think they do,” Smotherman says. “So the real problem is not being trans, it’s that you don’t know us. You cannot authentically support a trans person if you’ve never met one.
“That’s why my first goal with this Trans Advisory Board is to host a monthly Meet a Trans Person webinar. Not as a spectacle, as a debate, but as a human connection, and I will be charging every state chair with asking every one of their candidates up and down the board if they know a trans person. And if that person doesn’t know a trans person, I’m gonna have that state chair put them on that webinar.”
The LGBTQ caucus is also opening up associate membership to allies who do not identify as LGBTQ, in order to broaden support and connections over queer issues.
It’s also preparing for the inevitable attacks Republicans will throw at queer candidates and supporters of LGBTQ issues.
“These attacks are going to come. You have to budget money proactively. You have to be ready to fight,” Meloy says. “There are some local party chairs who don’t want to recruit LGBTQ candidates to run because these issues might come up, right? That’s an absolutely ludicrous statement, but there are still people who need support in how to be ready and how to respond to these things that inevitably come.”
“The oldest joke is that Democrats don’t have a spine. And when they come after us, and we do not reply, we play right into that.”
Meloy also alluded to anti-LGBTQ tropes that queer people are out to harm children, and said that Democrats should be prepared to make the case that it’s actually Republicans who are protecting child abusers – for example, by suppressing the Epstein files.
“They are weak on this issue. Take the fight, empower your parties to say, ‘These people have nothing to stand on,’” Meloy says.
Congress
EXCLUSIVE: George Santos speaks out on prison, Trump pardon, and more
Not interested in political comeback: ‘I made so many poor choices’
It has been just over two years since George Santos — the disgraced politician who once represented New York’s Third District — was expelled from Congress. Now, Santos is breaking his silence about his expulsion, imprisonment, subsequent pardon, what he believes he did wrong, and allegations regarding immigration fraud.
In 2022, Santos was elected to represent the Long Island communities of North Hempstead, Glen Cove, and Oyster Bay, one of the wealthiest congressional districts in the United States. This week, he sat in the lobby of the Hyatt Capitol Hill, just blocks from his former office in the Cannon House Office Building, to speak with the Washington Blade about how he became the center of one of the most outrageous political scandals in modern U.S. history. Despite the media scrutiny surrounding his lies, criminal convictions, and eventual pardon by President Donald Trump, Santos appeared relaxed during the interview, speaking freely about his experiences, admissions, and grievances.
Scope of Santos’s misconduct
Many journalists have struggled to verify George Santos’s personal history and professional resume. Numerous claims he made during his campaigns have been debunked or walked back, particularly regarding his personal and professional history since 2020.
Santos gained media attention for claiming Jewish heritage despite being raised Catholic and identifying as Catholic. He said his maternal grandfather grew up Jewish, converted to Catholicism before the Holocaust, and raised his children Catholic. Investigations, however, show his maternal grandparents were born in Brazil, not Ukraine or Belgium. Santos described himself variously as “Jew-ish,” “half Jewish,” a non-observant Jew, a “proud American Jew,” and a “Latino Jew.”
He also misrepresented his mother’s professional history, claiming she was “the first female executive at a major financial institution.” Records, including her 2003 visa application, show she had not been in the U.S. since 1999 and listed her occupation as a domestic worker.
Santos further fabricated his educational history, claiming a bachelor’s degree in finance and economics from Baruch College, where he said he graduated near the top of his class. Investigations revealed he never graduated. He also falsely claimed an MBA from New York University on official campaign documents — a misrepresentation that later became grounds for his expulsion. Santos later blamed the lies on a local Republican Party staffer.
His professional claims were also fraudulent. Santos called himself a “seasoned Wall Street financier and investor” and claimed to have worked for Citigroup and Goldman Sachs. Both companies reported no record of his employment. When pressed, Santos admitted he had used a “poor choice of words,” eventually describing his experience as “limited partnerships.” He also falsely claimed to have lost four employees in the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando; no victims had any connection to companies listed in his biography.
Santos misrepresented his residences during his 2020 campaign. He listed an Elmhurst, Queens, address outside the district he sought to represent, later moving with his partner to a Whitestone rowhouse. He was registered to vote at the Whitestone address but did not live there.
When asked about his lies, Santos told the Blade he wishes he did everything differently.
“Everything, everything, everything,” Santos told the Blade. “I made so many poor choices that I think it would be redundant to not say everything.”
He did not fully take responsibility, describing the scandals as a mix of personal ambition and what he called a “sensational political assassination.”
“Ambition is a toxic trait, and unfortunately, I was consumed by that. I forewent everyone else’s [considerations]… I had no consideration for anything around me other than myself, and that’s awful,” he added.
In addition to personal history fabrications, Santos made numerous false claims the Department of Justice later treated as campaign finance fraud. He solicited donations through a fake political entity, diverted funds into an LLC he controlled, and disguised personal expenditures as legitimate political expenses, using donations for luxury purchases.
Santos denied wrongdoing, stating, “I didn’t steal people’s credit cards… I didn’t go shopping at Hermes and Onlyfans. It’s not true either.”
He defended some purchases as campaign-related, singling out House Ethics Committee Chairman Michael Guest.
“The only two luxury brands that you’ll see of purchases in my campaign were Ferragamo and Tiffany. [I got] Ferragamo for the [male members of the] Republican steering committee when I was lobbying for my seat committee and three Tiffany pens for the females … That’s where those are legal expenses. They’re very legal.”
The House Ethics Committee found “substantial evidence” of lawbreaking, stating Santos “fraudulently exploited every aspect of his House candidacy,” using campaign funds for luxury shopping, cosmetic procedures, travel, and rent.
“I had a choice to not straw donate to my campaign, and I chose to, yeah, that was a poor choice,” Santos admitted. “Of course, I’m guilty for that. Was I forthcoming in the GOP with the party? No, I was not. I was very dishonest with the GOP, and for that I regret, and I also regret that the GOP in New York created an environment that made somebody like me feel it was needed to do that. But I regret not being forthcoming and honest about it.”
Santos also collected pandemic unemployment payments of approximately $24,000 while employed.
He was charged with multiple federal offenses, including conspiracy to commit offenses against the United States, wire fraud, making materially false statements to the FEC, falsifying records, aggravated identity theft, access device fraud, money laundering, and theft of public funds. Santos pleaded guilty to wire fraud and aggravated identity theft and was sentenced to 87 months in prison in April 2025, ordered to pay hundreds of thousands in restitution and forfeiture. He was released from the Federal Correctional Institution in Fairton, N. J., following Trump’s pardon in October.
Immigration fraud allegations
In addition to the professional and personal claims Santos has made that have been proven false, he also addressed allegations of immigration fraud raised by the Washington Blade. A source familiar with Santos’s history with U.S. immigration proceedings described several alarming allegations, most notably a reportedly fraudulent marriage to his former wife, Uadla Viera, to help her obtain U.S. immigration status. Santos has adamantly denied wrongdoing.
According to the source, who spoke to the Blade on condition of anonymity, Santos married Viera in a civil ceremony in Manhattan in 2012, despite neither living in the city. There are no known photos, announcements, or records of a wedding celebration, engagement, bridal party, shower, or honeymoon. This unusual lack of documentation stands out for Santos, whose life and actions are typically geared toward media attention.
While the source questioned the motive behind the marriage, Santos insisted it was legal and not done for any nefarious purpose.
“I married a person who was legally in this country, and all in all, what I did was kind of skip the line for her. And we were married, and there was no financial benefit [for me]. We were married. We had bills together. There’s no proof or evidence of a financial benefit other than jaded people again, anonymously, lying saying ‘He got paid. He offered me money.’ First of all, I don’t even have the wherewithal for that. Second of all, we went through a very rigorous — fucking rigorous — immigration litmus test, house interviews, multiple layers of interviews, a consummate marriage that was very obvious for anybody who was around us, and then I ended up cheating for now, obvious reasons.”
In 2013, the source said Santos dated Leandro Bis, a Brazilian tourist, while still married to Vieira. Santos denies this, framing the period as tumultuous and asserting that he was merely helping someone in need who now falsely alleges more. Bis told ABC News in a 2023 interview that Santos had “promised the world” to him while they dated.
“I’ve never dated a Leandro,” Santos told the Blade. “I can’t believe that six months of my life are common stories in the New York Times. This lunatic is going on TV and putting himself out there…I look so much better than him, and I’m much older than him. I mean life does numbers on people, because hate is a virus.”
The source further recounted Santos’s interactions with Greg Morey-Parker, a former roommate of Santos’s who told CNN that he was suspicious of Santos’s academic resume and stories of family wealth.
“Greg Morey-Parker is not a boyfriend– nowhere near a boyfriend,” Santos told the Blade. “He was actually a homeless Starbucks barista that I felt bad for. Let him crash in my living room. … He accused me of stealing his Burberry scarf. You’re homeless and you have a Burberry scarf? Bro, make up your fucking mind.”
In 2014, Santos met Pedro Vilarva, 18, on Tinder and dated him for a year while still married to Viera. According to the source, the trio socialized frequently: Santos and Vilarva with other gay men, Viera with heterosexuals. That same year, Santos filed a family-based immigration petition for Viera, who was granted conditional permanent residency. Santos publicly celebrated his engagement to Vilarva in a Facebook post at La Bonne Soupe, a Manhattan restaurant, though the relationship eventually ended. That Facebook post has since been deleted.
Santos maintains he was honest with both immigration authorities and his spouse.
“I was honest with immigration authorities, 100% above board. I was honest with my spouse, as far as my relationship with him and with my ex-wife, so much I’m the one who told her, I’m sorry we can’t do this anymore. I’m seeing Pedro. And she knew Pedro, it was a shit show. Okay? I’m gonna leave it at that, out of respect to both her and Pedro … I cheated on my first wife, and that was a whole story on its own.”
Later in 2014, Santos met Morey-Parker, who told the Daily Beast that Santos advised him to marry an immigrant woman from Brazil to make money. Santos denied that claim to the Blade.
“That is Gregory again making more shit up and there’s no proof or evidence or anything that you can point to,” Santos said.
Viera became a permanent resident in 2017, according to previous media reports, and in 2018 gave birth to a daughter. Santos did not claim paternity or seek custody. Santos and Viera were granted an uncontested divorce in 2019. Viera became a U.S. citizen in 2022 and purchased a $750,000 home in New Jersey, according to the Blade’s source and to the official deed of the property.
Santos did not mention that he had been married or divorced during his congressional campaigns until an internal vulnerability study commissioned by the campaign identified it as a potential issue for voters.
Santos downplayed all of this, saying it was a running joke among his staff. “I would be a joke. I would allude to it [and say] ‘Ladies, look, I love you guys, but there’s a reason that I don’t date women anymore, and I’m divorced from my first wife.’ It was like a running joke, making light of it and self-deprecating humor, which is my favorite kind of humor.”
He claimed that the New York Times story was the reason he became more sensitive with posts related to his ex-wife.
“The reason it’s not [visible] today is because I pulled it all off because of privacy issues. It was all archived for my Instagram, but if you had access to my Instagram prior to the New York Times story, you would see I never deleted my pictures with her…They were all over my Instagram, going to the beach, like everything. It’s like our entire life was documented together.”
On Trump, politics, and public office
Santos was tight lipped when the Blade questioned him about his conversations with President Trump.
“You never, ever share a lick of a word you exchange with the sitting president of the United States, no matter who that person is… I’ve seen it backfire for people who did it with Biden, with Trump, with Obama. I’m not about to make that mistake. Yeah, my conversations with the president are private.”
He did say that he was humbled by Trump’s pardon but regrets ever entering politics.
“I had such a good life, and to have to be at the place I am today is indicative of, you know, politics is really for the elites…I’m so uninterested in politics these days…I want to get involved in policy change, but not politicking.”
He said he is not interested in a position in the Trump administration.
“I would respectfully decline [any government job], I would say thank you from the bottom of my heart, and say ‘I’m probably not best suited for a job in government.’ I want nothing to do with the government or public office.”
Trans and LGBTQ issues
Santos also spoke on his experience as both a member of the LGBTQ community and a Republican legislator. Most notably, he doesn’t think there is any barrier for gay people to join the Republican Party, citing his ascent into Republican leadership as an example.
He defended his record as a gay Republican, noting the continued election and reelection of LGBTQ members of Congress and emphasizing that he disproved stereotypes about Republicans.
“There’s no bigotry in the Republican Party. It’s a matter of how you present yourself…I’m not saying there’s no anti-gay sentiment, I’m pretty sure there is, but I never experienced it.”
He continued, explaining how far-right figures gaining prominence within Republican circles sets off some tension.
“I know it exists… I mean Nick Fuentes exists, right? His followers go on my social media, and either call me a Jew or a homo all day long. But I’m proud of it. I’m proud that I was the first who didn’t conceal the fact that he’s gay, and still got elected by a constituency of Republicans in a landslide victory.”
It is important to note that Santos is the first openly LGBTQ non-incumbent Republican to be elected to Congress, not the first openly LGBTQ Republican to win an office. Santos won his seat with 53% of his district’s vote while his opponent, Robert Zimmerman, got 46%.
Santos spoke on his experience as a gay man, echoing other LGB Republicans who have distanced themselves from transgender rights.
“This is very controversial for me, but I don’t loop my issues in with the trans community issues. I’m a gay man. I’m gender conforming. I’m he/him/sir.”
He continued, saying all he can speak on is his experience as a gay man, which doesn’t inherently lend him to being a champion for transgender rights, unlike many other LGB elected officials have done.
“I’ve never walked in the shoes of a trans person, so I can’t speak for them.” Santos framed his stance on gender-affirming care carefully: “I believe those people deserve the right to treatment, and that’s fair. I don’t believe in a mass agenda of pushing children towards that. I think we need to have a sensible conversation of, let’s allow kids to get to a certain age, right? Let’s allow adults to make those decisions, not children…for permanent decisions like hormone blockers and puberty blockers…that should be with adults.”
This is despite general medical consensus that views gender-affirming care as medically necessary, appropriate, and potentially life-saving for trans youth. The American Medical Association, the largest medical association in the country, opposes state laws that interfere with or ban gender-affirming care, calling such actions harmful and contrary to medical evidence.
Prison experience
Santos also spoke explicitly about what he says are dehumanizing conditions at FCI Fairton, something that has given him a new passion following his release from the facility.
“It’s punitive and dehumanizing,” he said when describing the situation he was in.
“Black mold bubbling all over the ceiling. Rat infestations… Listeria and ringworm outbreaks. Expired food… Underwear with skid marks… either wear that or don’t wear underwear.”
He continued, emphasizing the dehumanizing treatment he says he received, and hoping it will lead to prison reform.
“Solitary confinement for 41 days. Three showers a week. One 15-minute phone call every 30 days. [The warden] an absolute vicious human being. … We need to rehabilitate people. Just make it humane.”
Santos hinted at a future in media and activism, particularly related to prison reform, signaling that while he has stepped away from public office, he may still seek to influence policy and public discourse.
Despite his dramatic fall from political grace, Santos remains unapologetically in the public eye. From allegations of fraud to his prison experience and ongoing controversies, he presents a portrait of a man both shaped by — and defiant of — the consequences of his actions. Whether the public views him as a cautionary tale, a redeemed figure, or something in between, Santos’s story continues to provoke debate about accountability, ambition, and the limits of political power in America.
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