On December 19, 2022, after George Santos won his election to Congress, but before he took office, The New York Times reported that he misrepresented many aspects of his life, including his education and employment history.[1] His lawyer denied the allegations.[1][2][3] On December 21, The Forward and Jewish Insider reported that Santos had lied about his family having Jewish heritage.[4][5] His initial claims that his maternal grandparents were Jewish Holocaust refugees who fled Soviet Ukraine and German-occupied Belgium were false;[5] his maternal grandparents were born in Brazil.[4] On December 22, New York Attorney General Letitia James announced an investigation had been opened into Santos.[6]
On December 26, Santos broke his silence with radio interviews on WABC[7][8] and in The New York Post.[9][10] He denied being a criminal, saying, "I'm not a fraud. I'm not a criminal who defrauded the entire country and made up this fictional character and ran for Congress."[11] Santos admitted to the Post that he lied about graduating from college and working for Goldman Sachs and Citigroup. During the interview, he said: "I never claimed to be Jewish. I am Catholic. Because I learned my maternal family had a Jewish background, I said I was 'Jew-ish.'"[9] By December 28, federal prosecutors for the Eastern District of New York were investigating Santos's finances, and the Nassau County district attorney was investigating him.[12]
In 2020, Santos claimed that he was biracial and that his Brazilian-born father had Angolan roots, which Jewish Insider could not confirm.[1][5]
Santos was raised a Catholic, but at points in his career claimed to be "Jewish"; "Jew-ish"; "half Jewish"; a non-observant Jew; "a proud American Jew"; and a "Latino Jew"; at other points, Santos has described himself as a Catholic.[13]
In a January 2020 appearance on Talking GOP, a cable TV show he co-hosted, Santos claimed his maternal grandfather grew up Jewish, converted to Catholicism before the Holocaust, and raised his children Catholic. Santos said "I'm Catholic" and that he was not "trying to claim Jewish heritage", but also, "I believe we are all Jewish, at the end – because Jesus Christ is Jewish. And if you believe in Jesus, and we're all brothers in Christ, I mean." The video was resurfaced in early 2023.[14]
Appearing on an October 2020 radio show, Santos claimed that Democratic former congressman Steve Israel offered him his support during an event hosted by the Council for a Secure America, a bipartisan group co-chaired by Israel. Santos claimed that Israel told him: "You're going to be the first Republican I am voting for in my life." Israel denied saying anything of the kind, and Santos did not appear on the event's guest list.[15][13] Santos did not otherwise make much mention of his purported Jewish ancestry during his 2020 run, but referred to it frequently in 2022 when all the candidates seeking the Democratic nomination to replace Suozzi were Jewish.[16]
At a meeting at the U.S.-Israel PAC a month before his 2022 election, Santos courted pro-Israel activists by falsely claiming to be "halakhically Jewish", according to attendees.[13] A co-chair of the organization said this served to give the impression that Santos's mother was Jewish, getting "a chuckle out of the crowd".[13]
Santos's former roommate said Santos frequently made antisemitic jokes, saying it was acceptable because he was Jewish, and corroborated an account that Santos previously joked online about Adolf Hitler killing Jews and Blacks.[17][18]
In 2023 media appearances, Santos claimed that his claim to Jewish ancestry was vindicated by DNA test kits, but he did not reveal the results.[19][20][21] Santos said on a May 2023 podcast that he was raised Catholic but considered himself a "member of the tribe" because his mother's ancestry was predominantly Jewish. Santos said he had many Jewish friends among his constituents and went to Shabbat dinners "more often than most".[21] Six months later he promised CNN's Manu Raju that he was still working on getting proof of his grandparents' ancestry, but that was difficult due to the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian War.[a] In Brazil, he said, he was "finishing getting the last pieces of it", which he described as evidence that would show his grandparents, after emigrating there, forged documents "so that they can blend in and all of that".[23]
On his campaign website, Santos wrote that his mother was "the first female executive at a major financial institution", worked in the South Tower of the World Trade Center, and died "a few years later" after surviving the September 11 attacks.[24] But on her 2003 visa application, his mother stated she had not been in the country since 1999;[25] in June 2001 Fatima reported she was living in Brazil.[26] Her actual occupation has been described as domestic worker[27] or home care nurse.[28][29]
Upon her death, a Brazilian newspaper described her as a cook. Santos's former roommates and friends said she spoke no English.[30] In July 2021, Santos wrote that "9/11 claimed my mothers [sic] life". In an October 2021 interview, he said his mother was "caught up in the ash cloud" during 9/11 but "never applied for relief" because the family could afford the medical bills. In December 2021, he wrote that his mother died five years earlier. In December 2022, he claimed his parents survived being "down there" at the World Trade Center during 9/11.[31][32] A priest at the family's Catholic church reported that Santos told him the family could not afford a funeral when his mother died in 2016. The priest recalled that a collection at a memorial Mass raised a "significant" amount for the family, which he gave to Santos.[24] He also had a friend set up a GoFundMe.[33] In November 2023 Vanity Fair reported that the funeral home never received the $6,000 it was owed for its services.[34]
In his February 2023 Piers Morgan interview, Santos insisted his mother had been at the World Trade Center the day of the attack. "It's quite insensitive to try to rehash my mother's legacy", he said. "She wasn't one to mislead me ... I stay convinced that's the truth."[35]
In 2019 and 2020 Santos said that he attended the Horace Mann School, an elite preparatory school in the Bronx, before withdrawing because of family hardship. After the school denied it, Santos claimed that he attended for only six months in ninth grade, suggesting he used one of his other names. The school reiterated it has no record of a student at the time using any variation of his name, which Santos's biographer also confirmed.[36][30][37][38] His biographer wrote that although Santos has retracted claims about his higher education, he remained adamant about having attended Horace Mann, despite the complete absence of evidence.[38]
Santos falsely claimed to hold a bachelor's degree in finance and economics from Baruch College and to have graduated near the top of his class, but his claimed period of attendance overlapped with his time in Brazil.[1][39] Santos's friends recall times when he claimed to be taking classes at Baruch but never seemed to study.[30] In January 2023, Santos falsely told a Republican Party chairman that he had been a "star player" on the Baruch volleyball team, as his LinkBridge supervisor had been, having won the league championship and defeated Yale University, which had no men's varsity volleyball team.[40][41][42] In a pre-election radio interview, Santos said his supposed volleyball career led to him needing both knees replaced.[43][44] He has admitted to lying about graduating from any college.[45]
Campaign documents claimed Santos held a master of business administration (MBA) from New York University (NYU) and scored 710 on the Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT),[2][39] and in a 2020 podcast Santos claimed to have paid off his MBA student loans by 2020.[46] A prospective Harbor City investor recalled Santos telling him he had turned down an offer to attend Harvard Business School.[47] Gregory Morey-Parker, a roommate who lent Santos money in 2014 that has not been repaid, recalled Santos claiming to be a graduate of NYU's business school but seemed not to know its name.[27][b]
In his interview with Morgan, Santos said that he lied about his college experience to meet perceived societal expectations but could not afford to attend.[35] Santos said he did not know the source of the spurious GMAT score in his resume published by the Nassau County Republican committee. Morgan asked why Santos thought he could get away with lying about his education in a congressional election, and Santos replied that no one had raised any questions about those claims during his 2020 campaign.[48] In a February 2023 Newsmax interview, Santos blamed his résumé lies on the local Republican Party;[49] later, after expulsion from the House, he said a campaign staffer had written his resume.[50]
Santos has used various aliases, including "Anthony Zabrovsky" and "Anthony Devolder".[51][36][33] A 2011 Wikipedia userpage created under the latter name claims the account holder acted in Hannah Montana and The Suite Life of Zack & Cody.[52]
After returning from Brazil, Santos told friends that he had worked as a journalist for Brazilian media conglomerate Globo.[53] The New York Times could not find his name on the organization's website.[30] Santos also told a roommate in late 2013 that he was a model who had worked at New York Fashion Week and would be appearing in Vogue.[53]
Santos called himself a "seasoned Wall Street financier and investor" and said he had worked for Citigroup and Goldman Sachs, but neither company has any record of him.[1] His campaign website stated that he was "an associate asset manager in the real asset division" of Citigroup,[45] but the company sold its asset management division in 2005, before his claimed employment.[1] On a 2022 podcast, Santos claimed that while employed at Goldman he attended the SALT Conference seven years earlier and criticized the company for investing in renewable energy, calling it a taxpayer-subsidized scam. Anthony Scaramucci, who runs the conference, said there is no record that Santos ever attended.[36]
Santos worked as a customer service representative at a call center for Dish Network in College Point, Queens, from October 2011 to July 2012, overlapping the time he said he worked at Citigroup.[54][27] He later told the New York Post that his Citigroup claim was "a poor choice of words" and that a subsequent employer had been in "limited partnerships" with those companies.[9] Acquaintances and coworkers said that Santos claimed his family was wealthy and had extensive real estate holdings in the U.S. and Brazil.[27] He repeated this claim during his 2022 congressional campaign, saying that he and his family owned 13 rental properties in New York. No such properties were listed on his campaign's financial disclosure forms or in public records.[1] Santos later admitted to the Post that the claim was false and he owned no properties as of the end of 2022.[9]
In a November 2022 interview, Santos discussed the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting that took place in Orlando, saying that his company "lost four employees" there.[55] The New York Times found no connection between the 49 victims killed in the attack and any company named in Santos's biography.[1] In a December 2022 interview, Santos changed his story, saying, "We did lose four people that were going to be coming to work for the company that I was starting up in Orlando".[45]
During his 2022 congressional campaign, Santos told prospective donors that he was a producer for the musical Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark. Michael Cohl, Spider-Man's lead producer, denied that Santos was involved with the show, and the musical's playbills did not contain his name. Santos was living in Brazil in 2011 when the show opened, and his alleged time as producer overlaps his employment at Dish Network.[56]
In August 2023, Santos downplayed the significance of the many false or exaggerated claims he had made related to his job history, saying he had not posted his résumé online during his campaign. He also noted that "studies show that most people lie on their resumes. It's just unfortunately ... the reality."[57]
During his 2020 campaign, Santos listed his residence in Elmhurst, Queens, outside the district in which he was then seeking office.[27][c] Santos and his partner later moved to a rowhouse in Whitestone, Queens; its owner said they had moved there in July 2020.[27] In March 2022, Santos told Newsday that he left Whitestone because of an alleged January 2021 vandalism incident.[27] He was registered to vote at the Whitestone address during his congressional campaigns, but did not appear to live there.[1]
Santos's landlord said he moved out of the Whitestone residence in August 2022, leaving $17,000 in damages,[27] but records showed he was still registered there when he voted that November. He continued to receive mail there after the election, including the certificate of his election victory, according to the landlord, who had disposed of most of it.[58] Santos told reporters he planned to move to Oyster Bay, but he and his partner apparently moved into a house in Huntington, outside his congressional district's boundaries, in August 2022.[27][c] He told the Post the house was his sister's, but the New York Times later found she lived in Elmhurst.[59]
On at least three occasions Santos has claimed to have been the victim of a crime that he apparently never reported to the police. In January 2016, he claimed to have been robbed of the money he was on his way to give his former landlady's attorney in settlement of her eviction claim against him.[60] Five years later, Santos claimed he and his partner had found stones and eggs thrown at their Whitestone apartment after they returned to it from a party at Mar-a-Lago. The owner, who lived in the building's lower unit, did not recall any such incident and the New York Times found no relevant police report.[27]
After his election, Santos told two Brazilian journalists on a podcast that during mid-2021, he was mugged in New York City as he walked out of a building at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 55th Street in midtown Manhattan in mid-afternoon. Thieves, he said, made off with his briefcase, watch, and shoes and fled the scene before anyone, even the police, noticed anything. Vanity Fair noted that the intersection in question is one of the busiest in the city with high security at its luxury businesses. Santos did not provide a police report of the incident.[61] His description of the alleged assault included a comment that has been characterized as an "overtly racist" stereotype about Black people being likely to commit crimes.[62]
In October 2023, Santos told the New York Times that a few months earlier his niece had vanished from a Queens playground, only to be found 40 minutes later in the company of two Chinese men. He claimed to suspect that the incident was retaliation for his opposition to the Chinese Communist Party. The newspaper found that while the incident had been reported to police, investigators found no evidence to support the story and suspected it had been invented.[63]
In addition to his claim in October 2020 of having both knees replaced,[43][44] Santos said in an interview earlier that year that he had been diagnosed with a brain tumor and received radiation treatment. He also claims to suffer from an immunodeficiency and acute chronic bronchitis. When asked in 2022, his campaign did not give details or answer questions about his purported brain tumor.[64]
In his 2020 campaign online biography, Santos claimed he and his family had worked charitably on behalf of children born with the rare genetic skin disorder epidermolysis bullosa (EB). Vice News found that no one involved with the few charities that specifically work with EB patients in the U.S. or Brazil had ever received contributions, or heard of him (under any name Santos is known to have used) or his family being involved with efforts in that area.[65] Sometime during 2022, the campaign changed the website so it no longer mentioned EB to language saying his family's charitable efforts were directed at "helping at-risk children and America's veterans".[66]
Republican leaders in Congress have declined to answer questions about the congressman-elect.
In interviews with WABC radio and the New York Post – the first times Santos has spoken publicly about the controversy – he acknowledged that he had fabricated some facts.
In March 2011, Santos commented on a photo shared by a Facebook friend which shows someone making what appears to be a military salute with the caption "something like Hitler." In his comment, Santos writes [sic]: "hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh hiiiiiiiiiiiitlerrrrrrrrrrr (hight hitler) lolololololololololololol sombody kill her!! the jews and black mostly lolllolol!!! Dum" ~. Patch also verified through another former friend, Gregory Morey-Parker, that the original Facebook post under which Santos wrote the Hitler comment existed.
I would have never gotten the nomination from the Nassau County GOP if I had not concluded college.