Incoming GOP Rep. George Santos is caught in a firestorm of scandal as it’s exposed that he lied about attending NYU, graduating from Baruch College, working at Citigroup, and working at Goldman Sachs. (Read More Here).
At the same time, new revelations uncovered by The Times — including the omission of key information on Mr. Santos’s personal financial disclosures and criminal charges for check fraud in Brazil — have the potential to create ethical and possibly legal challenges once he takes office.
The Times attempted to interview Mr. Santos at the address where he is registered to vote and that was associated with a campaign donation he made in October, but a person at that address said on Sunday that she was not familiar with him.
Material omissions or misrepresentations on personal financial disclosures are considered a federal crime under the False Statements Act, which carries a maximum penalty of $250,000 and five years in prison. But the bar for these cases is high, given that the statute requires violations to be “knowing and willful.”
Every slim congressional majority contains a bit of political peril. One scandal, illness, or death can substantially cut into the majority and alter the ability to govern.
This reality makes what Speaker Pelosi was able to accomplish with such a slim majority one of the most remarkable feats of leadership in the history of the House.
Republicans haven’t even settled on a Speaker, but there are already red flags popping up everywhere surrounding the House GOP. It only takes a few unforeseen circumstances to shift a majority.
As the new Congress prepares to begin in a couple of weeks, Rep.-elect George Santos stands out as a unique figure. The 34-year-old New Yorker, elected in a Long Island district that President Joe Biden won fairly easily two years earlier, became the first openly gay Republican to win a House seat as a non-incumbent.
Now, however, he appears likely to be known for something else entirely. The New York Times reported this morning:
By his account, [Santos] catapulted himself from a New York City public college to become a “seasoned Wall Street financier and investor” with a family-owned real estate portfolio of 13 properties and an animal rescue charity that saved more than 2,500 dogs and cats. But a New York Times review of public documents and court filings from the United States and Brazil, as well as various attempts to verify claims that Mr. Santos, 34, made on the campaign trail, calls into question key parts of the résumé that he sold to voters.
To be sure, résumé inflation is a familiar but unfortunate phenomenon in politics. There are too many examples of assorted candidates exaggerating their military backgrounds, for example. Others have embellished their academic or business experiences to appear more impressive to voters.
But the Times’ report, which has not been independently verified by MSNBC or NBC News, paints a qualitatively different kind of picture: This is less a story about a young politician who tweaked his résumé with some mild exaggerations, and more a story about an incoming congressman who appears to have engaged in radical public deceptions about who he is.
Voters were told, for example, that Santos attended NYU. The school has no record of a student matching his name or birth date. He also said he graduated in 2010 from Baruch College, which also “could find no record of anyone matching his name and date of birth graduating that year.”
The Republican then supposedly worked at Citigroup as “an associate asset manager.” The finance giant has no record of his employment — or his supposed title. He also claimed to spend some time at Goldman Sachs, which came as a surprise to Goldman Sachs.
Santos claimed to help run a tax-exempt organization that the Internal Revenue Service has never heard of, and also claimed to own a company — the Devolder Organization — that is “something of a mystery.” The Times added, “And while Mr. Santos has described a family fortune in real estate, he has not disclosed, nor could The Times could find, records of his properties.”
The discrepancies raise ethical and legal questions for Santos as he prepares to officially take on his role as a lawmaker in January as part of the new Republican majority in the House of Representatives.
Joseph Murray, an attorney for Santos, told CNN in a statement that the Times was attempting to “smear” the congressman-elect with “defamatory allegations.”
“Santos represents the kind of progress that the Left is so threatened by – a gay, Latino, immigrant and Republican who won a Biden district in overwhelming fashion by showing everyday voters that there is a better option than the broken promises and failed policies of the Democratic Party,” Murray said.
Santos’ biography has at times listed an education at Baruch College and New York University, earning degrees in finance and economics. A NYU spokesperson, John Beckman, told CNN, “the University’s records do not reflect anyone with that name [George Anthony Devolder-Santos] having attended NYU.” A spokesperson for Baruch College told CNN it could not find a record of anyone with his name or birthday ever attending the school.
On a biography of Santos on the National Republican Congressional Committee website, he claimed he received degrees from New York University and Barcuch College. CNN found that Santos specified in at least two separate interviews in the fall of 2020 that he received an MBA from NYU, adding in one interview that he had “zero debt” from his undergraduate and graduate studies. A review of his campaign websites, however, does not show references to a master’s degree.
Santos’ campaign biography also included mention of experience at financial firms Citigroup and Goldman Sachs, but both told CNN they had no record of his employment.
CNN also confirmed that Santos listed on his 2022 financial disclosure a salary of $750,000 this year and last at the Devolder Organization, which Santos has claimed is a “family firm” managing $80 million in assets.
A search for the Devolder Organization found that the business was registered in Florida in 2021 and was most recently temporarily deemed “inactive” by the state after failing to file the required annual reports. A website or LinkedIn profile could not be found, and Santos failed to report any of the clients he served in his financial disclosure.
Santos also claimed he founded and ran his own charity called “Friends of Pets United.” But no such organization was found in the IRS’ searchable database, nor in the registered charities in New York state and Florida. The nonprofit supposedly ran from 2013-2018, according to a story from a local newspaper, The Queens Gazette, announcing Santos’ first run for Congress in 2019.
Santos defeated Democrat Robert Zimmerman in a newly drawn district covering parts of Queens and some nearby Long Island suburbs, flipping control to Republicans, who dominated the New York suburbs on their way to winning a House majority. The GOP mini-wave outside the city set off roiling recriminations among New York Democrats, including calls for the state party chair to step down.
It was Santos’ second run — he lost to Democratic Rep. Tom Suozzi in 2020 — and most of the criticism he faced centered on his attendance of former President Donald Trump’s rally in Washington on January 6, 2021, and a video in which he claimed to have written a “nice check” to help alleged rioters with their legal fees.
His campaign message was largely focused on crime and inflation. But the Times found key portions of his backstory — namely his background in the financial services industry and where he attended school — were not confirmed by those organizations.
Some Democrats in the House were quick to call on House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy to block Santos’ seating when the new Congress is sworn in come January.
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