George Santos Prepares to Add to his Resume

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

In the age of Donald Trump it should not be surprising that another serial liar could be successful in running for office.  In 2020 a 32-year-old Republican by the name of George Santos ran for a seat in the US House of Representatives from New York as a Republican and lost by a narrow margin to an incumbent Democratic congressman - only when absentee votes were tallied.  Two years later George Santos ran for the same seat and beat his non-incumbent Democratic opponent by eight percentage points.

Everything was coming up roses for the young congressman-elect who was now thirty-four and set to be sworn into Congress in January as part of the new Republican majority.  But then last week The New York Times decided to take a deep dive into the background and resume of George Santos, and what the major newspaper-of-record for Santos' home district found proved to be most alarming and spawned a series of stories that have paraded across the headlines of several news cycles.

The Times found that through his resume and various press releases young George Santos had perpetuated an overly-bold series of outright lies about his background.

When the story broke last week The New York Times highlighted statements that George Santos had made regarding his educational background - that he had attended New York University and was a graduate of Baruch College in New York, saying that the newly-minted congressman had not appeared to have attended either of those schools.  The newspaper also noted that Santos had claimed to be a former employee of both Goldman Sachs and Citigroup, but that neither banking and investment group had any record of him ever being employed in their organizations.  

Santos has claimed during the campaign that h owned thirteen properties, but those claims, when checked, also proved to have been false.   He apparently owns no property, and was, in fact, living with his sister at the time of his election to Congress.  It also looks as though he has been the subject of two eviction proceedings and had at least one outstanding check that bounced.

When the Times story broke Santos at first tried to take some high ground and played the part of a striving young politician who had been smeared by the establishment press - and his lawyer even talked of lawsuits.  But this week in an interview with The New York Post Santos abruptly changed course and admitted that the had committed the political sin of "embellishing" his resume.  Santos changed his story from having "worked" for Goldman Sachs and Citigroup to simply having "liaised" with them through another company that he had worked for - and said his comments about employment with the banking giants simply represented "a poor choice of words."  The congressman-elect also told the Post that did not graduate from Baruch College or any institution of higher learning.

Santos told WABC Radio in New York that "a lot of people overstate their resumes, or twist a little bit."

George Santos had also mentioned in his campaign that his grandparents were Jewish refugees who had fled Ukraine during the Second World War.    Now he is saying that he is himself Catholic and that he had heard that his grandmother had been Jewish and had converted to Catholicism.  He said that he had referred to himself as "Jew-ish" during the campaign based on what he had heard about his grandmother.

And there appears to be more.  Just about every statement that the congressman-elect has made is being dug up, dusted off, and examined in the harsh light of reality.  Reporters are even looking into the citizenship of Santos, the son of Brazilian immigrants who possibly is also the owner of an apartment in Rio de Janiero.   The more they dig, the more they seem to find.

Santos has apologized for "embellishing" his resume, but seems set on taking his seat when the new Congress organizes next week.  The fact that he managed to get elected atop a mountain of misinformation speaks volumes about the extreme lack of due diligence that the GOP showed in vetting its congressional candidates - as well as a terrible effort at opposition research on the part of the Democratic Party.  Both major political parties clearly dropped the ball with regard to George Santos.

There are already calls from members of both parties for the House Ethics Committee to begin investigating George Santos as soon as the new House session convenes.  But with their razor-thin majority in the next Congress, it seems unlikely that GOP House leadership would be complicit in any formal activity that could end up formally removing one of their members - even one as dubious as George Santos.  It looks as though the man may have successfully lied himself into a secure and well-paid two-year gig.

It will certainly look good on a resume!