Did Republican Representative-elect George Santos lie about his life story?

The biography of newly elected Congress member George Santos appeared fairly spectacular. The 34-year-old son of immigrants had graduated from Baruch College, a public faculty in New York, earlier than happening to work at companies like Goldman Sachs and Citigroup. Santos finally grew to become a profitable financier who began an animal rescue charity. The downside is that biography was apparently a lie, and now he is perhaps dealing with not solely political penalties however authorized penalties for his wholesale innovations.

As revealed within the New York Times on December 19, it wasn’t simply that Santos exaggerated his résumé — he had allegedly invented it out of complete material.

The Times discovered that he apparently didn’t graduate from Baruch College, he didn’t work for Goldman Sachs or Citigroup, there have been no information of him being a profitable financier, nor have been there of him registering his animal rescue charity. The Times additionally discovered that he had been charged with test fraud in Brazil.

Further, quite a lot of retailers have discovered no proof of Santos’s repeated claims to be Jewish, to have Jewish heritage, or to be descended from refugees fleeing the Holocaust. Santos even described himself at one level as a “proud American Jew” in a marketing campaign place paper.

In a media tour with pleasant retailers on December 26, Santos admitted to placing “a little bit of fluff” on his résumé. In different phrases, he conceded that he by no means graduated from faculty, by no means labored for Goldman Sachs or Citigroup, and wasn’t Jewish (although he claimed to be “Jew-ish”). Santos disregarded mendacity about fundamental biographical data as embellishment, and he pushed again on the Times’s reporting about his legal cost in Brazil. “I am not a criminal,” he informed the New York Post. (In March, nonetheless, he reportedly accepted a plea take care of prosecutors in Rio de Janeiro to take duty for the crime and pay restitution to the sufferer for $1,300 in attire that Santos paid for with stolen checks.)

The complete Santos story has sparked one of many more unusual political scandals in American historical past. Members of Congress have dedicated homicide in workplace. In reality, a member of Congress has even killed one other member of Congress. Even within the current day, we’ve seen each scandal underneath the solar, from Anthony Weiner tweeting a lewd image of himself, to Marjorie Taylor Greene’s notorious Facebook put up about Jewish house lasers. But it’s arduous to think about a precedent for a scandal like this as Santos faces requires his resignation from fellow Republicans and investigations into potential legal misconduct.

Who is George Santos?

There are some issues we learn about Santos. The brazenly homosexual son of Brazilian immigrants, he was elected in November to an open congressional seat that features a skinny slice of Queens and far of the North Shore of Long Island in Nassau County. Santos defeated Democrat Robert Zimmerman by a margin of 54 % to 46 %. This represented a significant swing from 2020 when Biden had gained the district by the identical margin. That 12 months, Santos ran in opposition to incumbent Tom Suozzi in the same district and misplaced handily by a margin of 56 % to 43.5 %.

Santos can be an ardent Trump supporter — a lot in order that he was at Trump’s Ellipse rally on January 6, 2021, and has repeatedly falsely claimed that the previous president gained the 2020 election.

Also, for all his alleged mendacity about his résumé, it’s clear that one firm Santos labored at, Harbor City Capital, has been accused by the Securities and Exchange Commission of being a Ponzi scheme. As for Santos’s different employment, he did spend a stint as a Portuguese language customer support agent for DISH Network a decade in the past.

Santos has additionally been accused of establishing a GoFundMe that raised $3,000 to pay for lifesaving surgical procedure for the dying service canine of a disabled homeless veteran after which pocketing the cash. He responded on Twitter by claiming “the reports that I would let a dog die is shocking & insane.” Santos added, “Over the past 24hr I have received pictures of dogs I helped rescue throughout the years along with supportive messages.” Politico has reported that this alleged rip-off is being investigated by federal regulation enforcement. Questions have been raised about whether or not he had misappropriated different funds that he had raised on behalf of animal welfare.

He was charged with theft in Pennsylvania in 2017 in connection to writing unhealthy checks to Amish canine breeders. The expenses have been finally dismissed after Santos satisfied regulation enforcement within the state that his checkbook was stolen.

The New York congressman additionally falsely claimed in a 2017 Seattle court docket listening to for a convicted fraudster that he labored for Goldman Sachs. Santos made that assertion, in keeping with Politico, at a bail listening to for Gustavo Ribeiro Trelha, who was finally convicted of fraud for skimming card data from ATMs. The two males had beforehand shared an residence in Florida. Trelha has since implicated Santos as being the mastermind behind the scheme in a sworn assertion despatched to federal regulation enforcement.

Santos has additionally pushed again in opposition to the declare that he wearing drag whereas dwelling in Brazil. A drag performer who goes by the identify Eula Rochard informed a number of retailers that Santos used to carry out in drag underneath the identify “Kitara Ravache.”

Santos initially mounted an aggressive denial on Twitter. “The most recent obsession from the media claiming that I am a drag Queen or ‘performed’ as a drag Queen is categorically false,” stated the embattled New York Republican. “The media continues to make outrageous claims about my life while I am working to deliver results.”

Eventually, he conceded to reporters at LaGuardia Airport that he did gown in drag however that he was merely having “fun at a festival.”

What don’t we all know?

We don’t know loads. This ranges from fundamental information about Santos’s biography to particulars about his dealings with the Brazilian legal justice system, and every part in between, together with the place he really lives.

But most significantly, we don’t know the place Santos’s cash comes from. The consultant loaned his personal marketing campaign $700,000 through the 2022 cycle and claimed an revenue of $750,000. He additionally listed thousands and thousands of {dollars} in belongings together with an residence in Rio De Janeiro value as much as $1 million and a seven-figure financial savings account. It’s a significant shift in fortune for somebody who was evicted twice, in 2015 and 2017, for failing to pay lease and had been taken to court docket for not paying money owed. Even in 2020, he reported revenue in just one class — compensation in extra of $5,000 paid by one supply — with no different belongings.

Santos initially offered no data on his funds on his media tour, besides to concede that he owned no property. He had beforehand claimed on Twitter to be a landlord who owned 13 properties. The consultant finally claimed in an interview with Semafor that his newfound wealth got here from “capital introduction” the place he helped dealer offers for the rich. Santos used a yacht sale for example of how he earned a dwelling: “If you’re looking at a $20 million yacht, my referral fee there can be anywhere between $200,000 and $400,000.”

What occurs now?

Santos is already being investigated by federal and native prosecutors whereas the workplace of New York Attorney General Letitia James has been “looking into some of the issues that have come out.” Further, a grievance has been filed with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) by the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center alleging Santos illegally hid the supply of the cash he loaned his marketing campaign by way of a straw donor scheme and different alleged violations, together with whether or not he used marketing campaign funds to pay for private bills. The Washington Post reported in late January that the Justice Department has requested the FEC to carry off any enforcement actions in order that it might pursue a legal investigation.

Although Santos had initially accepted an project from House GOP management to sit down on the science and small enterprise committees, he introduced on January 31 in a gathering of Republican lawmakers that he would step other than these positions. The announcement got here solely a day after a closed-door assembly with McCarthy.

Dan Goldman, a fellow consultant from New York and a former prosecutor, has recommended that Santos face legal investigation for conspiracy to defraud the United States in addition to submitting false statements to the FEC.

In a December interview with Vox, Goldman shied away from weighing in on whether or not Santos needs to be denied his seat in Congress. “I think the bigger question is not whether I think George Santos should be a member of Congress. The bigger question is whether Kevin McCarthy and the Republican leadership think that George Santos should be a member of Congress.”

A lot of Santos’s fellow Republicans have known as on him to resign as properly. The Nassau County Republican Party, lengthy thought-about essentially the most highly effective county get together in New York, known as on Santos to step down as produce other New York Republicans, together with Reps. Anthony D’Esposito, Mike Lawler, Nick Langworthy, and Brandon Williams. Joe Cairo, the chair of the Nassau County GOP, told reporters, “George Santos’ campaign last year was a campaign of deceit, lies and fabrication” whereas demanding his resignation.

Rep. Max Miller (R-OH), one among solely two Jewish Republicans within the House and a longtime Trump White House aide, called on Santos to resign in mid-January, and cited the New York Republican’s lies about his household ties to the Holocaust in doing so.

The end result has left Santos in a state of limbo with no committee assignments and a continuing pack of reporters following him across the Capitol. But, as McCarthy acknowledged to reporters, if the Ethics Committee finds that Santos broke the regulation, the New York Republican needs to be ousted from Congress. Further, there’s new grist for the Ethics Committee with a potential staffer accusing the New York Congress member in early February of sexual harassment.

However, as of now, McCarthy wants Santos nearly as a lot as Santos wants McCarthy. McCarthy solely grew to become speaker by the pores and skin of his enamel on the fifteenth poll. With a slim majority — and the probability of frequent member absences now that the House has gotten rid of proxy voting — McCarthy wants each vote he can get.

Further, as a result of Santos represents some of the Democratic seats in Congress held by a Republican, forcing him to resign underneath any circumstance is dangerous. It can be a troublesome seat for a Republican to carry in a particular election and a loss would additional imperil an already slim GOP majority.

In the meantime, it’s a matter of ready for the subsequent shoe to drop. As unsustainable as the present established order might sound, the one impetus proper now for Santos to resign can be a way of disgrace, and it appears unlikely that he carries that burden.

Update, March 24, 3:10 pm ET: This story was initially revealed on December 21, 2022, and has been up to date a number of instances, most lately with information of the Brazilian plea deal.