The headline from Monday’s New York Post read “Liar Rep.-elect George Santos admits fabricating key details of his bio,” and in the accompanying article he admits that he deceived voters in New York’s 3rd Congressional District regarding his work history and education.
Santos admitted that he had not graduated from any institution of higher learning or worked directly for Citigroup or Goldman Sachs — claims the congressman-elect repeatedly made on the campaign trail.
Santos did not address other questions or discrepancies about his life and career, insisting that he is “not a criminal” and pledging to assume office as planned when the new Congress is seated after the new year.
Santos, who ran as an openly gay candidate in New York’s 3rd Congressional District, beat another openly gay candidate, Robert Zimmerman in a first-of-its kind House race in the Empire State.
New York’s 3rf Congressional district encompasses northwestern Suffolk County and northern Nassau County on Long Island and the northeast neighborhoods in Queens.
Santos has been embroiled in a pile-on of negative revelations as journalists continue to dig deeper into his professional and personal biography that he ran on. The controversy escalated after the New York Times published an article accusing Santos of lying about several aspects of his past, including his education and work history.
Speaking with New York Post reporters Victor Nava and Carl Campanile, Santos said:
“My sins here are embellishing my resume. I’m sorry.”
Santos confessed he had “never worked directly” for Goldman Sachs and Citigroup, chalking that fib up to a “poor choice of words.”
The 34-year-old now claims instead that a company called Link Bridge, where he worked as a vice president, did business with both of the financial giants.
“I will be clearer about that. It was stated poorly,” Santos said of the lie.
At Link Bridge, Santos said, he helped make “capital introductions” between clients and investors, and Goldman Sachs and Citigroup were “LPS, Limited Partnerships” that his company dealt with.
He also admitted that he never graduated from any college, despite previously claiming to have received a degree from Baruch College in 2010.
One of the issues that angered New York’s Jewish populace was his claims to Jewish ancestry and the lies about his grandparents surviving the Nazi Holocaust prior to and during World War II.
The Long Island Press and New York City-based The Forward, formerly known as The Jewish Daily Forward, reported that in his online biography, Santos claims that his grandparents fled Jewish persecution in Ukraine, and then in Belgium during World War II to avoid the Holocaust. The Forward investigated these claims and found that Santos’ grandparents were born in Brazil and seem to be Catholic.
Nassau County Legislator Joshua A. Lafazan (D – Woodbury) from the Nassau County Legislature denounce the alleged falsehoods about Santos’ claims of Jewish heritage, labeling the falsified biography as antisemitic to lie about having ancestors who survived the Holocaust.
“After multiple days of continued breaking news regarding Congressman-elect George Santos’ fraudulent past, it is now being nationally reported that he lied regarding his grandparents fleeing the Holocaust,” Lafazan said. “Exploiting the murder of 6 million Jews to win an election is arguably one of his most egregious acts yet. He must resign his election to the United States Congress immediately.”
Santos told the Post that he’s “clearly Catholic,” but claimed his grandmother told stories about being Jewish and later converting to Catholicism.
“I never claimed to be Jewish,” Santos said. “I am Catholic. Because I learned my maternal family had a Jewish background I said I was `Jew-ish.’”
At issue was also his sexual orientation after the Daily Beast discovered that he had been married to a woman whom he divorced the year prior to his first race in 2020 for Congress.
Santos had previously stated he had long been confident about his sexuality. In October, he told USA Today that he had not had any issue with his sexual identity over the last decade.
A Daily Beast article released this past Thursday revealed that Queens County court records show that Santos, who has claimed to be openly gay, divorced from a woman named Uadla Santos in 2019.
Queens New York media outlet QNS was able to confirm with the Queens County Court that George and Uadla Santos got divorced in September 2019.
Santos confirmed to the Post on Monday that he was indeed married to a woman for about five years, from 2012 until his divorce in 2019, but insisted that he is now a happily married gay man.
“I dated women in the past. I married a woman. It’s personal stuff,” Santos said, adding that the relationship “got a little toxic.”
“I’m very much gay,” he says now. “I’m OK with my sexuality. People change. I’m one of those people who change.”
Santos however did not address the lies he made during an interview with a Florida radio station that a company he owned and conducted business in Brevard County, Fla., had four employees murdered in the mass-shooting on June 12, 2016, at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando.
From WKMG News 6 Orlando, mother of Pulse victim calls N.Y. congressman-elect’s claims a lie:
The Orlando station and Talking Points Memo both revealed that Santos had recently re-registered a company in Florida, listing a Merritt Island address in Brevard County.
The Post also addressed the $11 million in assets reported in his financial disclosure report filed last September. Santos claimed those are tied to his Devolder consulting firm.
“All of my finances come from the firm. The assets are the contracts with the firm,” he told The Post.
The office of New York Attorney General Letitia James is looking into issues with the 2022 congressional campaign run by Santos the Washington Blade’s White House reporter has learned.
This week’s reporting on Santos yielded calls for the congressman-elect to be investigated by U.S. Attorney’s office in New York, the Federal Election Commission, Congressional House Ethics officials, and other legal actors.
On Thursday, the James’ office did not confirm whether it had formally begun an investigation.
In a published account Christmas Eve in the Post, and in several phone calls Saturday with the Los Angeles Blade, sources knowledgeable confirmed U.S. House Republican leadership’s awareness of the deceptive political and personal résumé of the Congressman-elect.
Sources also noted that the topic became a “running joke” within the party’s congressional leadership.
Story courtesy of the Washington Blade via the National LGBTQ Media Association. The National LGBTQ Media Association represents 13 legacy publications in major markets across the country with a collective readership of more than 400K in print and more than 1 million + online. Learn more here: https://nationallgbtmediaassociation.com/