Gay Republican leader, George Santos, admits to lying as he said he’s Jew-ish

Long Island Rep.-elect George Santos came clean to The Post on Monday, admitting that he lied on the campaign trail about his education and work experience — but insisting that the controversy won’t deter him from serving out his two-year term in Congress. (Read More Here).

“I am not a criminal,” Santos said at one point during his exclusive interview. “This [controversy] will not deter me from having good legislative success. I will be effective. I will be good.”

“My sins here are embellishing my resume. I’m sorry,” Santos said on Monday.

Santos confessed he had “never worked directly” for Goldman Sachs and Citigroup, chalking that fib up to a “poor choice of words.”

The 34-year-old now claims instead that a company called Link Bridge, where he worked as a vice president, did business with both of the financial giants.  

“I will be clearer about that. It was stated poorly,” Santos said of the lie. Santos, elected to Congress in Nov. 8 to represent the Long Island- and Queens-based 3rd District, was also accused of lying about his family history, saying on his campaign website that his mother was Jewish and his grandparents escaped the Nazis during World War II. 

Santos now says that he’s “clearly Catholic,” but claimed his grandmother told stories about being Jewish and later converting to Catholicism.

“I never claimed to be Jewish,” Santos said. “I am Catholic. Because I learned my maternal family had a Jewish background I said I was `Jew-ish.’”

Santos, the first openly gay non-incumbent Republican elected to the House, also faced accusations that he lied about his sexual orientation, with the Daily Beast reporting last week that he was previously married to a woman until shortly before he launched his unsuccessful 2020 campaign against Democrat Tom Suozzi. “I dated women in the past. I married a woman. It’s personal stuff,” Santos said, adding that the relationship “got a little toxic.”

“I’m very much gay,” he says now. “I’m OK with my sexuality. People change. I’m one of those people who change.”

Santos also acknowledged being a deadbeat tenant in Sunnyside, Queens, where The Times reported he was ordered by a judge to pay more than $12,000 to a former landlord who claimed non-payment of several months of rent — as well as that Santos had tried to pass a check that bounced.

On Monday, Santos claimed that at the time of the lawsuit, his family was deep in medical debt from his mother’s cancer battle.

“We were engulfed in debt,” he said. “We had issues paying rent at the time. It’s the vulnerability of being human. I am not embarrassed by it.” 

Santos said his mother died of cancer on Dec. 23, 2016, after living with him at the Queens apartment and acknowledged the judgement against him.

George Santos actually said today that “I never said I was Jewish … I said I was Jew-ish.” No really, he said this. Right up there with saying you’re going to give someone a Toyota and then giving them a toy Yoda.

In an interview with the New York Post, Santos said: “My sins here are embellishing my resume. I’m sorry.”

He also told the newspaper: “I campaigned talking about the people’s concerns, not my resume” and added, “I intend to deliver on the promises I made during the campaign.”

The New York Times raised questions last week about the life story that Santos, 34, had presented during his campaign.

The Queens resident had said he had obtained a degree from Baruch College in New York, but the school said that couldn’t be confirmed.

On Monday, Santos acknowledged: “I didn’t graduate from any institution of higher learning. I’m embarrassed and sorry for having embellished my resume.”

He added: “I own up to that. … We do stupid things in life.”Another news outlet, the Jewish American site The Forward, had questioned a claim on Santos’ campaign website that his grandparents “fled Jewish persecution in Ukraine, settled in Belgium, and again fled persecution during WWII.”

“I never claimed to be Jewish,” Santos told the Post. “I am Catholic. Because I learned my maternal family had a Jewish background I said I was ‘Jew-ish.’”

Santos first ran for Congress in 2020 and lost. He ran again in 2022 and won in the district that includes some Long Island suburbs and a small part of Queens.