George Santos takes over as US deputy sunk in suspicion

In two years, George Santos went from being a little-known candidate to becoming a symbol of the unexpected resurgence of the Republican Party in New York, a deeply democratic state. But a whirlwind of suspicion surrounds the politician as he prepares to go to the United States House of Representatives this Tuesday (3), to swear an oath to serve the Constitution and the country.

Santos has admitted that he forged important parts of his academic and professional record after an investigation by The New York Times found discrepancies in his resume and questions about his financial dealings. Federal and local prosecutors are investigating whether he committed crimes. Now, reports show the lies began years before he entered politics.

Santos would enter Congress facing significant pressure from legislators from both parties.

He’s been elusive: He hasn’t responded to phone calls, texts or emails asking him to respond to Times reports. Last week, when asked about the unusual campaign spending, his lawyer said it was “ridiculous” to suggest the funds were used irresponsibly. Santos did not respond to an email sent on Friday (30), asking for comment on new reports that show discrepancies in his past.

Members of his own party have asked for more explanations about his behavior, and Nick LaLota, another Republican congressman elected from Long Island, New York, has called for an ethics investigation in the House.

Representative James R. Comer of Kentucky, the new Republican chairman of the House Oversight Committee, told Fox News Thursday that he is “pretty confident” that the House Ethics Committee will open an investigation into Saints. He added: “What Santos did is a disgrace. He lied to voters.”

New York Democrats have also made it clear they want to subject him to deeper scrutiny. Congressman Hakeem Jeffries, the new Democratic leader, said Santos was “unfit for office”. Rep. Ritchie Torres said he plans to introduce the Stop Another Non-Truthful Office Seeker bill, which would require House candidates to submit details of their background under oath.

The lawmaker who could be most important to his future in the House, Kevin McCarthy, the Republican leader, remained silent when asked about the Times report and the Santos interviews that support it.

It is not yet clear how the controversy will affect Santos’ debut in Congress, including his participation in committees. He told NY1 last month that he hoped to serve on the House’s Financial Services or Foreign Affairs committees, based on his “14 years of experience in capital markets” and a “multicultural background.” He later admitted to having skewed his way into financial services, while aspects of his family heritage were called into question.

A new Times report paints a clearer picture of his past life, including information about gaps in his personal history, along with discrepancies in the way he described his mother’s life.

Santos said he grew up in an apartment in Jackson Heights, in Queens, New York. Until Wednesday (28), Santos’ campaign biography said that her mother, Fatima Devolder, worked until she became “the first female executive in a large institution”. He also said that she was in the south tower of the World Trade Center during the September 11, 2001 attacks and that she died “a few years later”.

In fact, Devolder died in 2016, and a Brazilian community newspaper at the time described her as a cook. Friends and former roommates of Santos remember her as a hardworking, friendly woman who spoke only Portuguese and earned her living by cleaning and selling food. None of those interviewed by the Times could recall any cases of her working in finance.

In 2008, according to court records, Santos and his mother lived in Brazil, in Niterói, Rio de Janeiro. A month before his 20th birthday, Santos walked into a small clothing store and spent nearly $700 (R$3,740) in 2008 using stolen checks and a false name, court records show.

Santos denies having committed crimes in the United States or abroad. But the Brazilian record shows that he admitted the fraud to both the police and the merchant. “I know I made a mistake, but I want to pay”, he wrote in a message to the store owner in August 2009 on Orkut, a popular social network in Brazil at the time. “It was always my intention to pay, but I couldn’t.”

In November 2010, Santos and his mother appeared before the police, where they both admitted that he was responsible. On September 13, 2011, a Brazilian judge ordered Santos to be prosecuted. Three months later, a court official tried to subpoena him, but he could not be found.

By that time, he had moved back to New York and was working at a Dish Network call center in College Point, Queens, according to company records.

The Public Ministry of Rio de Janeiro informed this Monday (2) that it should reopen an investigation against Santos. The process was suspended because the authorities could not locate him. According to the MP-RJ advisory, with the election and consequent identification of the whereabouts of the now elected deputy, a formal request will be made to the US Department of Justice to notify him of the accusations.

Interviews with former friends and colleagues of Santos, several of whom spoke on condition of anonymity so as not to be involved in the controversies, suggest that he was reinventing himself when he returned to New York and would continue to do so in the years to come. They portray Santos as a fighter whose penchant for exaggeration and a sense of superiority left them in doubt about their supposed achievements.

He told some that he had been a journalist for a famous news organization in Brazil, but no one could find his name on the company’s website. He said he studied at Baruch College in New York, but none of his friends remembered him studying. Santos boasted of exploits on Wall Street, but he often appeared to be short of cash, sometimes taking out loans he didn’t always repay.

When he joined a technology travel company called MetGlobal, Santos presented himself as a man from a wealthy family. But two former co-workers said the pay was modest and the job did not match Santos’ description of himself as a financier recovering after making bad bets on Wall Street.

Not everything in Santos’ stated biography was a lie. A document from the company LinkBridge confirms that he was vice president. Several former colleagues say he worked for MetGlobal, in a subsidiary called HotelsPro. And records examined by the Times seem to corroborate his claim that he received his high school equivalency diploma in New York in 2006.

In 2016, Santos left for Florida, according to public records, around the time HotelsPro was opening an office in Orlando. Santos told Newsday in 2019 that he briefly went there for work. He got a driver’s license in Florida and registered to vote in the 2016 election.

People who knew him remember that Santos was always a follower of Republican politics and a critic of Hillary Clinton and Bill de Blasio, then mayor of New York.