Congressman George Santos is a Republican politician who represents New York’s 3rd congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives. He was elected to Congress in 2022, defeating the incumbent Democrat Thomas Suozzi. He is the first openly LGBT member elected to Congress as a Republican.

However, Santos has been embroiled in multiple controversies and scandals since his election, involving allegations of fraud, deception, and theft. He has also made numerous false or dubious claims about his personal and professional background, such as his ancestry, education, employment history, charity work, property ownership, and crimes of which he claimed to be a victim.

Some of the most notable examples of Santos’s fabrications and falsehoods are:

• He claimed to be of Portuguese, Italian, and Jewish descent, but his parents are both Brazilian and he has no documented Jewish ancestry.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Santos

• He claimed to have graduated from New York University and Harvard Business School, but he never attended either institution. He also claimed to have a law degree from Brazil, but he never completed it.

• He claimed to have worked as an investment banker at Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and JPMorgan Chase, but he never held any such positions. He also claimed to have founded and run several successful businesses, but he never registered or operated any of them.• He claimed to have donated millions of dollars to various charities, but he never made any such donations. He also claimed to have founded and run a non-profit organization called Santos Foundation, but it was a sham entity that never filed any tax returns or financial reports.

• He claimed to own several properties in New York, Florida, and Brazil, but he never owned any of them. He also claimed to have been a victim of arson, burglary, and vandalism, but he never reported any of these incidents to the police.

Santos has admitted to lying about some of these aspects of his biography, but he has also tried to justify, minimize, or deny others. He has blamed his staff, his family, his enemies, and the media for his troubles. He has also accused his critics of being biased, homophobic, or anti-Semitic.In addition to his lies, Santos has also faced legal troubles in both Brazil and the United States. In 2010, he confessed to having committed check fraud in Brazil in 2008, but he failed to appear in court in 2011, leaving the case unresolved. In late 2022, Brazilian authorities revived the case and issued a warrant for his arrest. Santos later agreed to plead guilty and pay a fine. In the United States, Santos has been sued several times for eviction and personal debt, and he has failed to pay thousands of dollars in judgments from the 2010s. He has also been accused of stealing from his campaign donors and using the money for his personal expenses. In 2022, he was indicted on 13 federal charges, including wire fraud, money laundering, theft of public funds, and making false statements to the House of Representatives. In 2023, he was indicted on 10 more federal charges, including wire fraud, identity theft, and obstruction of justice. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

Santos has faced intense pressure to resign from his seat in Congress, but he has refused to do so. He has also survived an expulsion vote in the House, which fell short of the required two-thirds majority. However, after the House Ethics Committee released a report in November 2023 implicating Santos in fraud, he announced that he will not run for re-election in 2024. Another expulsion resolution has been introduced, and Santos expects it to pass. He has scheduled a press conference to address the situation.

PREs1.org Research Team