The Crazy Life of George Santos: The Lies, The Racism, and The Scandals

George Santos was a rising star in the Republican party, but his career quickly imploded after a series of outlandish lies and racist comments he made came to light. The 34-year-old Long Island Republican was elected to represent New York’s 3rd Congressional District in the House of Representatives in 2022. However, his political career has been short-lived, as he now faces an internal investigation by the Republican party and scrutiny from federal, state, and local authorities for potential criminal wrongdoing.

George Santos’s Lies 

There are so many either inconsistencies or just flat out lies George Santos has told regarding his life. Here are some of them: 

-George Santos claimed to have attended the elite Horace Mann private school in the Bronx during his first year of high school, but a school spokesperson said there is “no evidence” of it. He claimed he had to leave the school in his senior year because “my parents fell on hard times, which was something that would later become known as the depression of 2008.” 

-George Santos claimed to have gone to Baruch College and earned a degree in economics and finance in 2010. This means he would have completed the four year program in two years since he claimed to have graduated from Horace Mann in 2008. Again, a representative for Baruch College told The New York Times that there is no evidence of Santos graduating from the school in 2010. 

There was also a biography of Santos on the National Republican Congressional Committee that stated he spent time at New York University. The Congressman had to admit later to the New York Post  that he “didn’t graduate from any institution of higher learning.” 

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-George Santos’s campaign bio states he worked at Goldman Sachs and Citigroup. Both companies have confirmed to The New York Times that there is no record of his employment at either company. What’s almost comical is that the lie he told about working at Citi’s real-estate wing in the 2010s was so easily debunked as the bank sold off its asset-management operations when Santos was in high school. 

Santos told the lie about working at Goldman Sachs for years, even claiming on his resume he doubled the revenue on the project he worked on at Goldman. 

-Then there is the question of where Santos’s money came from. When he ran for congress in 2020, Santos filed a disclosure showing he had a salary of $55,000 working at LinkBridge Investors. He claimed he brought in $1 million in revenue in six months introducing investors to hedge-fund managers. But the company’s founder had testified in 2019 that Santos was just a “freelancer” and only worked on commission. 

George Santos started working at a Florida investment firm called Harbor City Capital. He bragged about managing $1.5 billion in funds and having 12 to 26 percent returns, but there were complaints from a customer that the company did not have a full bank guarantee on investments. In 2021, the Securities and Exchange Commission accused Harbor City of being a Ponzi scheme. George Santos was not accused of wrongdoing by authorities. 

That same year, Santos moved on to starting his own company called Devolder. He told Semafor his company helped rich people buy expensive toys. He claimed to have made between $3.5 million and $11 million from his company before it was dissolved in 2022. 

-George Santos made up a history as a landlord, writing in a campaign bio that he and his family ran a real-estate portfolio of 13 properties. The New York Times found no evidence of the buildings that the family allegedly manages.  

-Then there is the case of the non-existent animal charity. George Santos’s campaign bio stated he ran an animal charity foundation called Friends of Pets United. The foundation allegedly saved 2,500 dogs and cats between 2013 and 2018. But no records could be found of the charity existing in New York and New Jersey where it was claimed to have operated. 

The New York Times did find Friends of Pets United held one fundraiser with a rescue group in New Jersey in 2017. There was a $50 entry but the rescue group that threw the event said they never received any funds from Santos. 

George Santos: The Racism

In addition to the lies, Santos is also facing scrutiny for his racist comments. An old Instagram post resurfaced, showing Santos posting a meme that made Barack and Michelle Obama appear as apes. The post was from 2014, but it was just another addition to the long list of offenses allegedly committed by Santos.

There were more social media posts that appear to show Rep. George Santos making deeply offensive racist and antisemitic comments. Patch reviewed a slew of deleted posts allegedly written by Santos, who reportedly deleted his entire personal Facebook account in December. In 2011, he commented on a Facebook post by a friend which showed someone making a military salute and captioned “something like Hitler. Santos commented saying, “”hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh

hiiiiiiiiiiiitlerrrrrrrrrrr (hight hitler)

lolololololololololololol sombody kill her!! the jews and black mostly lolllolol!!! Dum”

This was particularly offensive because for years Goergeo Santos, who also goes by the name Anthony Devolder, had claimed to have Jewish heritage. 

George Santos: The Scandals Related to Huge Tragedies 

There are so many scandals following George Santos, but can the biggest ones be that he loves claiming  people he cares about were victims of huge tragedies? 

In July 2021, Santos wrote on Twitter that the terrorist attacks on September 11th “claimed my mother’s life.”  But then on December 23, 2021, he said the date was the fifth anniversary of his mother’s passing. His mother’s obituary confirms that.  

One way George Santos can explain this away is that on his campaign website, it is stated that his mother, Fatima Devolder, “was in her office in the South Tower on September 11” and that she “passed away a few years later when she lost her battle to cancer.” Does that mean her cancer was caused by the September 11th attacks? Also, would the 15 year gap between the terrorist attacks and his mother’s passing be considered “few years?” 

Two genealogists found documentents that showed George Santos’s mother was actually in Brazil in September 2001. 

Another George Santos lie. 

His mother was not in the WTC on 9/11. She was stuck in Brazil.

She claimed her green card was stolen in Rio in 1999. In 2003, she’s still in Brazil and her visa app states she had not been in the US since 1999.

Thx @CleverTitleTK @alccalz for docs. pic.twitter.com/q5pjBd6F8Q

— Andrew Silverstein (@ASilversteinNY) January 17, 2023

Georeoge Santos had also claimed his mother was a finance executive, but records show that she was only employed at an import business in Queens that closed in 1994.

In an interview with WNYC, George Santos said he “lost four employees” in the Pulse nightclub shooting in 2016. The New York Times  found that none of the 49 victims worked at any of Georege Santos’s companies. 

And the biggest one of them all is George Santos claiming to be a descendant of Holocaust survivors. In an interview in 2022, Santos said his “grandparents survived the Holocaust.” He also told Fox News, “For a lot of people who are descendants of WWII refugees or survivors of the Holocaust, a lot of names and paperwork were changed in name of survival.” Records show that Santos’s maternal grandparents were both born in Brazil. Genealogy records reviewed by CNN showed “no sign of Jewish and/or Ukrainian heritage and no indication of name changes along the way.”