The biography of newly elected Congress member George Santos seemed quite impressive. The 34-year-old son of immigrants had graduated from Baruch College, a public college in New York, before going on to work at firms like Goldman Sachs and Citigroup. Santos eventually became a successful financier who started an animal rescue charity. The problem is that biography was apparently a lie. As revealed in the New York Times on Monday, it wasn’t just that Santos exaggerated his résumé, he had allegedly invented it out of whole cloth.
The Times found that he apparently did not graduate from Baruch College, he did not work for Goldman Sachs or Citigroup, there were no records of him being a successful financier, nor were there of him registering his animal rescue charity. The Times also found that he had been charged with check fraud in Brazil.
Further, a number of outlets have found no evidence of Santos’s repeated claims to be Jewish, to have Jewish heritage, or to be descended from refugees fleeing the Holocaust.
Santos has not directly denied any of the allegations. Instead, in a statement on Monday, which also included a quote wrongly attributed to Winston Churchill, his attorney said, “It is no surprise that Congressman-elect Santos has enemies at the New York Times who are attempting to smear his good name with these defamatory allegations.” On Thursday, Santos followed up on Twitter, promising “To the people of #NY03 I have my story to tell and it will…
