Representative-elect George Santos (R-N.Y.) is being accused of vastly exaggerating his resume.
Santos became the first openly-gay Republican to win a House seat as a non-incumbent when he flipped a district held by Democrats in the November elections.
He sold himself as a successful son of Brazilian immigrants who went to a public college in New York City and went on to become a “seasoned Wall Street financier and investor.”
Santos also claimed he had “an animal rescue charity that saved more than 2,500 dogs and cats.”
However, a review of his background by The New York Times failed to find evidence to back up his story.
The Times’ Michael Barbaro tweeted a link to an article examining Santos’ past, and wrote, “Good lord! His entire biography appears to be fabricated.”
Good lord! His entire biography appears to be fabricated. https://t.co/QKmBOCY8RG
— Michael Barbaro (@mikiebarb) December 19, 2022
The article stated, “Citigroup and Goldman Sachs, the marquee Wall Street firms on Mr. Santos’s campaign biography, told The Times they had no record of his ever working there.”
“Officials at Baruch College, which Mr. Santos has said he graduated from in 2010, could find no record of anyone matching his name and date of birth graduating that year,” it added.
According to the Times, there is “little evidence that his animal rescue group, Friends of Pets United, was, as Mr. Santos claimed, a tax-exempt organization: The Internal Revenue Service could locate no record of a registered charity with that name.”
The paper noted Santos’ “financial disclosure forms suggest a life of some wealth. It explained he “lent his campaign more than $700,000 during the midterm election, has donated thousands of dollars to other candidates in the last two years and reported a $750,000 salary and over $1 million in dividends from his company, the Devolder Organization.”
While the paper was unable to substantiate Santos’ claims about his past, it found charges for check fraud in Brazil.
It noted the revelations have “the potential to create ethical and possibly legal challenges once he takes office.”
According to the Times, Santos did not respond to repeated requests from The Times that he furnish either documents or a résumé with dates that would help to substantiate the claims he made on the campaign trail.”
He has not addressed the story in tweets either as of Monday morning.
Santos ran an unsuccessful bid for Congress in 2020. And in a since-deleted tweet claimed he was the victim of voter fraud in that election.
In November, Republicans flipped four House seats in New York, including Santos’ race, which appears to have been crucial to the party winning control of the chamber.