Who is the real George Santos?
Santos, a 34-year-old Republican from Long Island, defeated Democrat Robert Zimmerman last month in what was the first known congressional election featuring two openly gay candidates. The Representative-elect from New York’s third district is scheduled to take office for the first time next month as questions are being raised about his résumé.
The New York Times reports Santos may have lied about a lot of his experience, including his work history, college records, and charitable giving. Santos’ campaign biography says the Brazilian-American worked at Citigroup and Goldman Sachs but both firms said they had no record of him there; a review of public documents and court filings found no evidence that his family owns 13 real estate properties; both Baruch College and New York University found no records of his enrollment, despite claims he graduated from Baruch in 2010 and took classes at NYU; and a New Jersey animal group said it never received any money from a $50-a-ticket fundraiser he co-hosted in 2017.
According to the Daily Beast, Santos’ most recent employer was accused by federal regulators of being a Ponzi scheme during the campaign, but his other alleged fabrications are only coming to light now.
Santos previously lost the NY-3 race to Thomas Suozzi by about 40,000 votes in 2020, but beat Zimmerman by more than 20,000 in November, one of several New York house seats that flipped from blue to red since President Joe Biden’s…
