It seems that building a reputation on lies is increasingly the ladder to success in American politics.
Richard Blumenthal won a Senate seat in Connecticut by lying about “serving in Vietnam.” George Santos won a seat in Congress despite the fact that, as Vanity Fair describes it, he “basically never told the truth about anything and ripped off a whole bunch of people in the process.”
But not every political liar gets away with it. Fox News in 2018 chronicled the stories of four liars whose fabrications were exposed. Two were elected despite their lies; the others did not fare well.
In Oregon, Amanda La Bell, the American Working Families Party nominee for state representative, lied about earning a bachelor’s degree from Valdosta State University in Georgia – a class C felony. Two years later, La Bell spent five days in jail for embezzling thousands of dollars from an Oregon law office where she worked briefly as a business development manager.
In Florida, GOP House candidate Melissa Howard admitted to lying about having a college degree from Miami University of Ohio; her fate was 90 days of probation and 25 hours of community service to escape prosecution for misrepresenting her academic standing.
Democrat Andy Kim won a U.S. House seat in New Jersey despite facing claims he had exaggerated his “service” in the Bush Administration – a claim tagged by The Washington Post as spurious.
In New York, Julia Salazar, a Democratic Socialist candidate for state senate, was outed by her own family for claiming she was a Jewish immigrant born poor in Colombia when, in truth, she was born in Florida and had hundreds of thousands of dollars in a trust fund. Despite being exposed as a liar, the former pro-life Republican turned pro-choice Socialist won her seat and continues to serve.
Salazar’s political journey and her claims about her short life led political journalists in City and State to admit that “Skeptics certainly have been given reason not to trust Salazar, but one wonders how many members of Congress could be similarly questioned on their own stories of humble origins.”
Blumenthal’s false claims of valor in Vietnam bring to mind false claims of valor related to the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York’s World Trade Center towers.
Yet, like Blumenthal, at least one 9/11 liar has fared very well, building an impressive resume on a falsehood. To this day, he stakes much of his reputation on a false narrative.
And then there is the high profile case of capitalizing upon stolen valor regarding Donato Tramuto, who claimed he “almost died” in the second plane to hit the Twin Towers but was saved by a toothache that led him to deboard from United Flight 175. Tramuto’s lie enabled him to create a foundation and raise millions of dollars – not for 9/11 victims (as many donors may have supposed) but to raise his profile as a philanthropist.
Some of the donated funds went to Christ the King Seminary, which was shut down after its president, Father Joe Gatto, was accused of molesting children.
But perhaps the biggest recipient of the Tramuto Foundation’s ill-gotten gains is the RFK Human Rights Foundation.
His million-dollar “donation” was large enough to fund then-director Kerry Kennedy’s $500,000 salary for two years and won him many honors, including a seat on the foundation’s board and the Kennedy Ripple of Hope Award, for his “generosity.”
He also received the RFK Children’s Action Corps 'Embracing the Legacy Award and a host of honorary doctoral degrees after bilking people based on his false claim of 9/11 valor.
Tramuto is well positioned within the political circles of Maine, and his ties to the Kennedy family doubtless reinforce his influence.
That Tramuto would leverage his foundation’s donations to Kennedy charities into political advantage raises the question of whether Tramuto duped Kerry Kennedy and the foundation she runs in her father’s honor or knew all along that his story was a fabrication.
Just a year ago, fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried was exposed after donating up to $100 million he stole from his customers to political campaigns. The Washington Post speculates that prosecutors will try to make the case that Sam aimed to redeem his political capital for friendly treatment from policymakers to grow his empire and keep siphoning customer monies.
While some of the recipients of Bankman-Fried’s ill-gotten gains have promised to donate those funds to “charity,” there is little evidence that politicians intend to return the money to those whom the fraudster duped. Nor has Kerry Kennedy thought of offering to return any of the money Tramuto raised based on his false 9/11 narrative to those who were duped.
The biblical story of the fate of Ananias and Sapphira and their false claim that they donated all of the profits from the sale of their property ends with their dropping dead at Peter’s feet.
What was their sin? Lying about a charitable contribution.
But what did they do differently than Donato Tramuto?
And why does Tramuto’s lie not matter to Kerry Kennedy?