George Santos accused of flashing white-power symbol during House speaker vote

• Rep. George Santos has been accused of flashing a white-power symbol on the House floor on Thursday.

• Santos appeared to flash an OK symbol while casting a vote for Kevin McCarthy as speaker.

• The lawmaker has faced controversy after he admitted to lying about major parts of his résumé.

George Santos, the New York Republican lawmaker who has admitted to lying about major portions of his résumé while campaigning, has been accused of flashing a white-power symbol on the House floor on Thursday.

The incoming lawmaker, who was sworn in on Saturday, was pictured making the gesture as he cast a vote for Kevin McCarthy in the tenth round of votes for House speaker.

Santos used his right hand to cast his vote for McCarthy while making a sideways "OK" gesture with his left hand, which was positioned across his body.

A C-SPAN video of the moment shows that Santos had his arms folded, with his left arm already in position, before he was called to vote.

Right-wing trolls on the website 4chan popularized the hand gesture as a hoax hate symbol, but white supremacists later adopted it as a genuine expression of white supremacy, according to the Anti-Defamation League.

While far-right groups often use it as a white-power symbol, some right-wing trolls also still use it to "trigger liberals," according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Many took to social media to condemn Santos and speculate on whether he had deliberately flashed the hand gesture.

Rep. Ritchie Torres, a Democrat from New York, said on Twitter: "George Santos is not biracial but tri-racial. He has Latino, black, and now white power."

The New York State Sen. Anna Kaplan called on Santos to resign, writing on Twitter: "This is truly sick – the fraud about to become our Congressman made a 'white power' hand gesture today in Congress as he cast his vote for Speaker of the House."

Joy Reid, a host on MSNBC, addressed the controversial gesture while speaking to The Bulwark's Tim Miller and said that the incoming lawmaker had appeared to "throw the white-power sign."

"Yeah. I don't — he might have been holding his fingers together," Miller said. "There's plenty of bad things about George Santos without me reading into his body language."

Santos was not immediately reachable for comment.

Santos — the third gay Republican member of Congress — beat Democratic candidate Robert Zimmerman and flipped New York's 3rd Congressional District on Long Island.

But his statements, both on his résumé and on the campaign trail, attracted scrutiny after The New York Times and other media outlets revealed that he misled the public about a plethora of topics, including his education, religion, work background, and family history.

Brazilian authorities are also conducting a renewed fraud investigation of Santos.

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