Less than a week into his new job as US Representative, George Santos has continued to make headlines for various claims made on the campaign trail, on his website, and on his personal resume, many of which have turned out to be false. false.
Fabrications came to light after bombing New York Times The report revealed that a large part of Santos’ biography could not be corroborated. Allegations that he misled voters about his education level, previous jobs and family ties to the Holocaust have drawn bipartisan condemnation in recent days for misrepresenting his identity.
Some of the mystery surrounding Santos’ background, particularly when it comes to his finances, has already sparked investigations at both the federal and county levels. But even as a growing chorus of lawmakers calls for the Republican’s resignation, previous falsehoods and embellishments by Santos continue to surface.
Below is a summary of some of Santos’ claims that were recently found to be false.
Claim: He worked at Goldman Sachs and Citigroup
Santos previously claimed that he worked as an associate asset manager at Citigroup from February 2011 to January 2014, and as a project manager at Goldman Sachs where, according to his resume, he was responsible for “2X (300M to 600M) revenue growth” in about seven months.
Neither Citigroup nor Goldman Sachs were able to verify his employment at Times (A Citigroup employee told the outlet that they were unfamiliar with his alleged role in the company and had previously sold the division he claimed to be a part of.) What’s more, the Times reported that in 2012, when he claimed to be working at Citigroup, Santos was working as a call center employee for Dish Network.
Santos told the New York Post that he had “embellished” some parts of his resume, but went on to claim that he worked with Goldman Sachs and Citigroup in some capacity.
Santos said he “never worked directly” for Goldman Sachs and Citigroup. To post he served as vice president of a company called LinkBridge Investors, which did business with both financial firms.
“I will be more clear about it,” Santos told the outlet, adding: “He expressed himself badly.”
According to the Timesthere is evidence that Santos worked for LinkBridge Investors, although it is not clear exactly how long he worked there or what title he held.
Claim: Graduated from Baruch College, attended New York University, and received an MBA
Santos has said he graduated from Baruch College in 2010 and wrote on a resume submitted to the Nassau County Republican Committee in 2020 that he graduated summa cum laude with a 3.89 GPA.
In a biography on the Republican National Congressional Committee website, he also cited a stint at New York University, a similar claim made on the 2020 resume, where he said he earned an MBA at the school after earning a 710 on the GMAT.
But Santos told the To post he had lied about his degrees, pointing out that he did not attend Baruch College or New York University, as he had previously claimed.
“I did not graduate from any institution of higher education,” he told the plug. “I’m embarrassed and I’m sorry I embellished my resume. I admit that…we do stupid things in life.”
Claim: Has Jewish heritage
On the campaign trail and on his website, Santos has previously claimed his Jewish heritage, saying his grandparents were actually Jewish immigrants who fled persecution during World War II.
After the Jewish newspaper Forward disputed those claims, Santos told the To post: “I never claimed to be Jewish. I am Catholic. Since I learned my maternal family had a Jewish background, I said I was ‘Jewish.'”
Claim: He founded an animal rescue organization.
A campaign biography claimed that Santos ran a foundation called Friends of Pets United, which he claimed saved 2,500 dogs and cats between 2013 and 2018. There is some evidence that such a group existed, with the Times reporting that the organization at one point had a Facebook page and that it held a fundraiser with a rescue group in New Jersey in 2017.
But it’s unclear how legitimate the charity may have been, as the group that launched the 2017 fundraiser told the outlet that it never received any funds raised at the event, despite Santos charging $50 per ticket. Also, the Internal Revenue Service has no record of a registered charity under that name.
Claim: “Lost four employees” in Pulse nightclub shooting
In an interview on WNYC in November, Santos said he “lost four employees” in the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, drawing a comparison between that event and a 2022 shooting in Colorado.
“I condemn what happened in Colorado, just like the Pulse nightclub in Orlando in 2016, where, at the time, I have people working for me at the club. My company, at that time, we lost four employees. who were at the Pulse nightclub,” Santos told WNYC. “This is a moment of deja vu for me, it’s not something that’s really good, even because it only brings back tragic memories.”
According to the TimesNone of the 49 victims of the Pulse shooting appear to have worked at any of the companies mentioned in Santos’ biography and the mother of one of the victims said she didn’t know of anyone who lost more than two employees, let alone four. in the tragedy.
Santos, who is the first openly gay Republican to win a non-incumbent House seat, also admitted that he had been married to a woman in the past, something else he had not previously disclosed.
Public divorce records show that his marriage ended around the time he first entered a congressional race, though when he declared himself a candidate, he had labeled himself a proud gay man who said “I never had a problem with my sexual identity in the past decade.”
Claim: Was a “star” volleyball player in college
The chairman of the Nassau County Republican Committee said that, during his first run for Congress in 2020, Santos claimed to be a college volleyball “star” at Baruch University.
“He said he was a star and they won the championship and he was a striker,” Joseph Cairo, chairman of the committee, said at a news conference on Wednesday.
As Santos has since admitted, he did not attend school.
Claim: He owned 13 different properties
On Twitter, Santos previously claimed to be a picture of financial success, writing in February 2021 that he owned “13 properties” for which he claimed he had received no rent in over a year.
But the truth is murkier. He Times reports that the Santos family frequently struggled to pay rent in Queens over the years and borrowed thousands of dollars from an acquaintance who claimed he never paid it back.
Talking with him To postSantos said the family was “in debt” due to his mother’s battle with cancer. “We had trouble paying rent at the time. It’s the vulnerability of being human. I’m not ashamed.”
Santos’s owner, Nancy Pothos, told CBS the lawmaker moved out in August 2022, just months before he was due to be elected.
“George Santos has no property,” Santos said of himself to the To postwhen asked about the claims.
Despite his previous financial woes, Santos appears to have prospered since launching his 2022 campaign.
In 2020, when Santos launched his first House run, he declared in a financial disclosure that he had no assets or income from work. But his financial situation appeared to have improved markedly when he decided to run for a second House run in 2022, and Federal Election Commission documents show he loaned at least $580,000 to his campaign and $27,000 to his committee. political action.
In campaign documents, Santos further claims to have made millions of dollars in 2021 and 2022, from a business he launched in May 2021.
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Other mysteries about Santos persist.
Questions about Santos’ mother, for example, arose after reporters noted that he once wrote on Twitter that the 9/11 terrorist attacks “alleged [his] life of his mother”, later writing that December 23 was the date of his death.
In other cases, Santos has said his mother died of cancer after the attacks, though Lamination Stone reports that no victim advocacy group was able to identify her mother among those who filed a victim’s compensation claim.
There are other red flags, also in other countries.
According to the TimesSantos had a criminal record in Brazil that had never been resolved, and court records showed he had been charged with fraud at one point after writing bad checks. The publication also reported that he confessed to the crime and was charged, but authorities were later “unable to locate him” to punish him.
“I am not a criminal here, neither here nor in Brazil nor in any jurisdiction in the world,” Santos said. The charge. “Absolutely not. That didn’t happen.”
Earlier this month, Brazilian authorities told the Times they were reviving their case against Santos, now that they had verified his whereabouts.
Brazil is not the only jurisdiction investigating Santos. Late last month, the Nassau County District Attorney’s Office announced it was investigating Santos and reports surfaced that federal investigators had also opened an investigation into Santos’ financial statements.
Santos has said he will not resign.