George Santos scandal: A running list of the House Republican’s most questionable claims
Barnini Chakraborty
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New York Rep. George Santos has not gotten off to a good start in Congress.
The Republican freshman has been accused of fictionalizing large chunks of his resume and is facing multiple ethics complaints of improper campaign reporting and spending. Santos has been shunned by members of his own party following a wave of negative headlines that exposed the many fabrications he’s made about his life, education, family, faith, and work. The Long Island lawmaker has admitted to inventing parts of his backstory but has insisted that his work in the House of Representatives “is not about my personal life.”
Others seem to disagree.
As the matter is investigated and hashed out in the court of public opinion, the list of things Santos has said but cannot prove about his background keeps growing. Here is a look into some of those claims.
Education
Santos has bragged about earning a degree from Baruch College, the alma mater of clothing giant Ralph Lauren and Jacqueline Hernandez, the former COO of Telemundo Enterprises. Santos said he graduated from Baruch, one of the country’s most ethnically diverse colleges, in 2010, but no one has been able to corroborate those claims and the college said there were no records of anyone matching his name or his date of birth graduating that year. They did name-drop other notables who took classes at Baruch, including entertainer Jennifer Lopez and rapper Immortal Technique.
Santos also claimed he had a degree from New York University, which appears to be fabricated as well.
In his failed 2020 run for office, he claimed on his website that he attended Horace Mann, a prestigious prep school in the Bronx, but was forced to drop out because his family didn’t have the money to pay for tuition. Officials at Horace Mann said they do not have any records indicating Santos was ever a member of its student body.
Grandparents, the Holocaust, and being “Jew-ish”
Santos has repeatedly claimed he is a “descendant” of Holocaust survivors.
During a November 2022 interview with the Jewish News Syndicate, he said he was “very proud of my Jewish heritage.”
“I’m very proud of my grandparent’s story,” he added. “My father fleeing Ukraine, fleeing Stalin’s persecution, going to Belgium, finding refuge there, marrying my grandmother, then fleeing Hitler going to Brazil. That’s a story of perseverance. I’m so proud. I mean, I wish I could have met my grandfather.”
In a May 2022 interview, he said his grandparents survived the Holocaust.
A year earlier, Santos told Fox News his grandparents “escaped socialism, they’ve escaped communism, and the Holocaust.”
Santos also claimed to have a Catholic father and a Jewish mother. However, his late mother regularly posted crosses and other Catholic imagery and followed several Catholic faith-based organizations on social media. Multiple online genealogy reports seemed to indicate that both of Santos’s grandparents were born in Brazil years before the Holocaust and that none of his family members were listed in official refugee records.
Santos was invited by the Republican Jewish Coalition in December to light the first candle of the RJC’s Hanukkah menorah. It’s unlikely he’ll be invited back.
“We are very disappointed in Congressman-elect Santos,” the group said in a written statement. “In public comments and to us personally, he previously claimed to be Jewish. He has begun his tenure in Congress on a very wrong note.”
Santos has tried to laugh off accusations he fabricated his faith by joking that even though he is Catholic, he is “Jew-ish.”
Crime
Santos claimed in a sworn statement that he was mugged in 2016 while on his way to pay $2,250 in back rent to his landlord in Queens, New York, during an eviction case, Gothamist reported.
Santos claimed he was “unable to provide a police report” and had been told by the authorities to return several days later to pick one up, according to the affidavit.
However, a spokesperson for the New York Police Department said there had been no report filed relating to Santos’s allegations.
Citigroup and Goldman Sachs
Santos claimed he worked for Citigroup, the third largest banking institution in the United States, as well as Goldman Sachs.
While he has admitted he fabricated his work experience, he has gone on to claim he worked at a third company that did business with the two banking giants. Santos has been asked to provide evidence to back up his story but has so far failed to do so.
Santos also bragged about criticizing Wall Street at a private equity conference.
“I did it in the fashion of renewable energy and global warming,” he told the This Week’s Long Island News podcast. “This was the panel I was on. And they’re all talking about solar, wind, and this was back, what, seven years ago now? And I said, ‘You know what? This is a scam. It’s taxpayer money that gets subsidized.'”
Pulse nightclub shooting
In a November 2022 interview with WNYC radio, Santos called the shooting at Club Q in Colorado Springs a “deja vu moment.”
He went on to say the shooting reminded him of the June 2016 shooting at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando. In that incident, a 29-year-old gunman killed 49 people and wounded 53 more before being fatally shot by police. Santos claimed his company lost four employees in the shooting.
However, a deep dive into his background by the New York Times revealed none of the people killed at Pulse ever worked at any of the places Santos worked or claimed to have worked.
Animal charity
Santos said he founded a charity group called Friends of Pets United, created to save the lives of thousands of dogs and cats.
However, the New York Times, as well as other publications, have not been able to find any IRS documents linking Santos to the organization.
He later told a reporter that he only campaigned for the group and tried to find foster homes for a few of the animals.
Brazil
Santos admitted to stealing a man’s checkbook in Brazil and using money to buy shoes and clothing in 2008, CNN reported.
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Authorities were forced to suspend the investigation after Santos fled and remained on the lam for a decade.
Brazilian law enforcement officials told the New York Times that they intend to revive fraud charges against the newly elected lawmaker now that they know where he is. A spokeswoman for the Rio de Janeiro prosecutor’s office said it would send a request to the Justice Department to notify Santos of the charges.