George Santos Admits to Lying About College and Work History - The New York Times
Category: News & Politics
Via: jbb • 3 years ago • 82 commentsBy: Michael Gold and Grace Ashford (nytimes)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
The congressman-elect confirmed The New York Times's findings that he had not graduated from college or worked at two major Wall Street companies, as he had claimed.
Congressman-Elect George Santos at the Republican Jewish Coalition in Las Vegas in November.Credit...Mikayla Whitmore for The New York Times
By Michael Gold and Grace Ashford
Dec. 26, 2022Updated 8:11 p.m. ET
Representative-elect George Santos admitted on Monday to misrepresenting his professional experience and educational history to voters, but said it would not deter him from taking office in January.
Mr. Santos, a New York Republican who was elected in November to represent parts of northern Long Island and northeast Queens, confirmed some of the key findings of a New York Times investigation into his background, but sought to minimize the falsehoods in his first remarks since The Times published its findings last week.
"My sins here are embellishing my resume," Mr. Santos told The New York Post in one of two interviews he granted on Monday to conservative-owned media outlets.
"I am not a criminal," Mr. Santos said, adding that he would still be an effective legislator. In a separate interview with WABC-AM radio, he said he still intended to be sworn in at the start of the next Congress.
The admissions by Mr. Santos served as a capstone to one of the more astonishing examples of an incoming congressman falsifying key biographical elements of his background — with Mr. Santos maintaining the falsehoods through two consecutive bids for Congress.
Yet even as Mr. Santos, whose victory helped Republicans secure a narrow majority in the next House of Representatives, admitted to some fabrication, his actions will still not prevent him, in all likelihood, from being seated in Congress.
Democrats — including the outgoing House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and the next House Democratic leader, Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York — have accused Mr. Santos of being unfit to serve in Congress. Top House Republican leaders, including Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, have largely remained silent.
The Aftermath of the 2022 Midterm Elections
A moment of reflection. In the aftermath of the midterms, Democrats and Republicans face key questions about the future of their parties. With the House and Senate now decided, here's where things stand:
Biden's tough choice. President Biden, who had the best midterms of any president in 20 years as Democrats maintained a narrow hold on the Senate, feels buoyant after the results. But as he nears his 80th birthday, he confronts a decision on whether to run again.
Is Trump's grip loosening? Ignoring Republicans' concerns that he was to blame for the party's weak midterms showing, Donald J. Trump announced his third bid for the presidency. But some of his staunchest allies are already inching away from him.
G.O.P leaders face dissent. After a poor midterms performance, Representative Kevin McCarthy and Senator Mitch McConnell faced threats to their power from an emboldened right flank. Will the divisions in the party's ranks make the G.O.P.-controlled House an unmanageable mess?
A new era for House Democrats. Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the first woman to serve in the post and the face of House Democrats for two decades, will not pursue a leadership post in the next Congress, paving the way for fresher faces at the top of the party.
Divided government. What does a Republican-controlled House and a Democratic-run Senate mean for the next two years? Most likely a return to the gridlock and brinkmanship that have defined a divided federal government in recent years.
The House can only prevent candidates from taking office if they violate the Constitution's age, citizenship and state residency requirements. Once he has been seated, however, Mr. Santos could face ethics investigations, legal experts have said.
Mr. Santos, through representatives, has declined multiple requests to speak with The Times. His interviews did not fully address the scope of The Times's reporting, which also included omissions on his financial disclosure forms and a charity he claimed to have founded and registered with the I.R.S.
He also firmly rejected having been charged criminally anywhere in the world, but did not appear to explain the existence of records identifying him as being charged with check fraud in Brazil.
Over the course of his campaigns, Mr. Santos claimed to have graduated from Baruch College in 2010 before working at Citigroup and, eventually, Goldman Sachs. A biography on the National Republican Congressional Committee website said he had attended both Baruch and New York University and received degrees in finance and economics.
But the colleges and companies could not locate records to verify his claims when contacted by The Times.
In Monday's interview, Mr. Santos admitted to The Post that he had not graduated "from any institution of higher learning." He also admitted that he never worked directly for Goldman Sachs or Citigroup, blaming a "poor choice of words" for creating the impression that he had.
Past statements of Mr. Santos are relatively clear however: An archived version of Mr. Santos's former campaign website preserved by the Wayback Machine says that he "began working at Citigroup as an associate and quickly advanced to become an associate asset manager in the real asset division of the firm."
Instead, he told The Post, he dealt with both firms through his work at another company, LinkBridge Investors, which connects investors with potential clients.
Mr. Santos told The Post that LinkBridge had "limited partnerships" with the two Wall Street companies.
The Times was able to confirm Mr. Santos's employment at LinkBridge. But in a version of his campaign biography posted as recently as April, Mr. Santos suggested that he had started his career on Wall Street at Citigroup and that he was at Goldman Sachs briefly before his time at LinkBridge.
A spokeswoman for Citigroup declined to comment. Representatives for Goldman Sachs and LinkBridge did not immediately respond to a request for more information.
Mr. Santos has not fully accounted for his employment during the years that he had claimed, until recently, that he was advancing on Wall Street. In his interview with WABC radio, he confirmed reporting by The Times that he had worked at a call center in Queens in late 2011 and early 2012.
The WABC interview itself was something of a political sideshow curiosity. Mr. Santos was interviewed by John Catsimatidis, a supermarket magnate and a big Republican donor, and Anthony Weiner, the former Democratic congressman who resigned in disgrace in 2011.
Mr. Weiner asked Mr. Santos about his claim, made in an interview last month shortly after his election, that a company he had worked for "lost four employees" at the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando in June 2016. The Times reviewed news coverage and obituaries and found no evidence that could support the claim.
On Monday, Mr. Santos told WABC that those four people were not yet employees but instead were in the process of being hired.
"We did lose four people that were going to be coming to work for the company that I was starting up in Orlando," he said.
Mr. Santos did not name the company or provide additional information to support his statement. Public records show Mr. Santos was living in the Orlando area at the time of the shooting and that he was registered to vote there during the 2016 election.
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My Goodness!
Is it possible for the voters in his constituency to demand a new election? Does the Republican Party want a proven liar to be their representative in Congress?
Santos is the perfect GOP candidate. He is a Trumper.
It's Joe" a coal miner from a family of coal miners" Biden's world, and everyone else is just playing by his rules.
George Santos.
depends on what the state constitution and laws allows , most times and in most cases , there are no allowances for a recall election at the federal level, otherwise cheney would have been recalled .
Now something that the house can actually do is refuse to seat him on ethics violations or censure, which is basically kicked out , but since the house is controlled by the party he was elected under , chances of that are slim . in any case if they dont refuse to seat him , his tenure in the house will likely be a single 2 year term .
yep, with the slim majority the Republicans have in the House I suspect they will not refuse to seat him. But I doubt he will be put on any committees and I agree that his tenure is very probably just the one term.
That's a $174,000 annual reward for fraud, $348,000 in total.
I like his, "I never claimed to be Jewish, I said that I was Jew'ish."
Trumpists will believe him too.
Taking into consideration that he is a liar, cheat and a fraud, that is an antisemitic statement.
I'd sure like to know where the money he loaned to his campaign came from. He has no assets, no job, and was unable to pay his rent on a few recent occasions.
This confession only leads to more questions...
The money. Was it laundered? Was it foreign? Or just good ole' American oligarch?
Who cares...he's just as well qualified to serve as your average Democrat.
If a sleazy whore can be vice president, what difference doesn't it make if his resume is incomplete.
After all, Biden tells lies and embellishes his credentials all the time.
Pretty sure he is a republican.
it sure would be funny to find out that it was the opposition that funded him thinking he was the prefered candidate they could beat , not like thats ever happened before right ?
IF that were the case , i would have to say , man did that backfire ....
That doesn't seem to be the case and his answer as to where the money came from has triggered investigations by both the state and feds..
just saw that on my news feed , i will say it will be interesting to watch .
Biden nods his head approvingly and asks him to be his VP in 2024.
And again the MAGA mind divulges.
By all means, let's see the performative outrage from Biden supporters over a candidate lying about his background and history.
[deleted]
What in the name of Othella are you talking about?
That you are unfamiliar with Joe Biden's decades long history of lying about his family history, education, personal life and resume does not surprise me.
The memory hole is real.
Are you saying Joe Biden did not serve 36 years in the United States Senate, two full terms as Vice President of the United States and is not serving as the President of the United States of America right now?
What has George Santos done?
Yes. His first wife and daughter were killed in an automobile accident. He also rode the Amtrack to work. He has also changed his stances on issues due to changing circumstance.
Pardon me, but I suggest you think more of your nation's future than the prospects of a grifter who inhabits Mar-a-Largo. Memory hole? You are the one that degraded my Vietnam military service a few years ago. I suggest sir, you banter with those on the level that you inhabit. You are out of your league.
This will be our last conversation. You can join the Texan.
You may be replying to a Russian bot.
(Yea, opinion, but dispute them? We'll wait).
If you want to talk about lying politicians and deflect to Biden? Hey, lets do it...
He has also changed his stances on issues due to changing circumstance
you think that’s what I’m talking about? The guy has lied about everything in his life. He’s lied about his jobs, he lied about how his family died, he lied about his his family being coal miners, he lied about his athletic career, he’s lied about being under fire, he’s lied about his education, he lied about his grades, he plagiarized papers in school, he plagiarized speeches, he lied about protesting, he lied about being arrested, he lied about confronting other polticans…
He’s lied about his entire life. And the Democratic shills don't care.. But boy, are they mad at Santos for lying about his background.
It's really funny to anyone who's brain isn't broken by partisanship.
You are the one that degraded my Vietnam military service a few years ago
that's a lie. The only thing I know about you is you constantly spout insane conspiracy theories ( Helsinki!) and believe Hillary Clinton stole the 2016 election. Loony tune shit. If you say you served in Vietnam I have no reason to doubt it, but it also doesn’t give you free reign to lie and spout wild conspiracies without consequences.
I agree, trump and Biden are serial liars. Two peas in a pod.
But shill, shill for your hero Biden.
You may be replying to a Russian bot.
[deleted]
Could you miss the point by a bigger margin?
Do you admit Biden’s lied about his background and accomplishments for decades?
On January 3rd President Biden will have held the highest offices in the US (Senator, Vice President and President of the United States of America) for Fifty years...
Well, except for Jan 2017 till Jan 2021.
What does Joe have to compensate for?
How long has Santos been in Congress?
Good question! What psychological issues have caused Biden to constantly lie about every aspect of his life for years?
How long has Santos been in Congress?
You are correct. He doesn't have the decades long record of lying about his life like Biden does. He's a piker just getting started!
Now you are just talking smack...
Why is it so difficult for you to admit the obvious, that Biden’s lied about his background for decades? that’s literally what he was famous for.
all looking for moose and squirrel ....
I applaud you
Not even the subject of the article. You [deleted just cannot accept reality.]
I have no problem accepting reality. This guy is a liar. Kick him out of congress I don’t give a shit..
you can’t cope with the reality of Biden’s lying, hence the lashing out and deflection to trump.
His name is Santos actually.
Satos is the perfect GOP flotsam dude, falling in with the, "I'm like a really smart guy," crowd. Quote from DJT.
Well as the departed Harry Reid once said when confronted about lying to get a piece of legislation passed in the senate after it passed ," it worked didnt it ?"
So, you are talking about George Santos right?
No, he is not! And, it is pretty obvious why...
i AM talking about politicians in general , and how lying has been set as a precedent to get their goals , HRs was to get apiece of legislation passed , so he lied about it and it got passed , it was found out he lied and was confronted , his indifference to the fact he lied to get what he wanted was shown in his response , it worked .
same can be said of santos , it worked , it got him elected . The voters and the opposition party didnt do their due diligence in vetting who they were running against or voting for , that , is on them .
IF lying were grounds for removal , then there would be no politicians in DC from either party . and big government would grind to a standstill IMHO.
Seems to me , SOME people are ticked off a page was taken from their playbook , used against them and they lost because of it .
As i said to buzz when he asked if the guy can be recalled or the voters get another election , depends on the state , it seems NY doesnt have any provisions to recall or hold another election on the federal level , as in the case in most all the states , otherwise the dems wouldnt be calling for his resignation ( then they MIGHT get another election) not realizing even if he resigns , that the party org in the state he is affiliated with gets to choose who could possibly replace him , either way a rep won the seat , a rep will remain in the seat . Again that is dependent on the states constitution and its laws , but thats generally how it works .
Now , if i were a member of the NY state republican party( I am neither a republican , nor do i live in NYS) , i would already be telling party leaders to have a list of 3 people from the party to give to the govenor ( that is who would ultimately choose this guys replacement if it came to that unless state law dictates otherwise )ready with already vetted individuals with not a hint of any impropriety in their histories .
How do i come to this conclusion? if someone dies in office , resigns or is removed , the party they are affiliated with chooses who is to replace them from the state they were elected to represent .
do tell.
(i cant wait for this one )
There are only a couple comments in this entire 38 comment seed that address the issue of George Santos, The rest of them are just the normal everyday whining from the right that we get all the time.
He’s a liar and a fraud. How many ways or times do you want to read that?
Like all Congressional candidates, Santos filed a report of his finances with the clerk of the House. If he lied on this report, the DoJ could pursue criminal penalties. Fines up to $250K and or up to five years in prison. to the guide.
Perhaps the next move is Garlands.
Probably the biggest whopper to come out of this guy’s mouth was when he said he was embarrassed about being caught. Like so many other contemporary Republicans, this guy does not know shame.
At another point in the interview, Gabbard asked Santos, “Do you have no shame?”
He didn’t answer and immediately pivoted to attacking Democrats.
When he was asked about HIS lying, he literally blamed the Democrats and Joe Biden.
He may be a fraud, but he knows where his bread is buttered.
There are actually people on this forum who believe that Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton are as big or bigger liars than Trump. Nothing on earth can save these people.
Unfortunately, on Newstalkers, we are supposed to "debate" them. It is beyond ridiculous.
Did you mean guilt instead of shame which many liberals find to be an unhealthy feeling? Shame is, I am bad. Guilt is, I did something bad.
The difference between pickaune and pedantic?
Not to many in the mental health industry.
Here’s Biden throwing out a blizzard of lies about his background in 88. The way the media reacted to his lies in 88 compared to now is telling.
Isn’t that amazing? Back then, it not only ruined his presidential aspirations, he was a laughing stock in the media. Sadly, his constituents in Delaware were unfazed and kept reelecting him to the Senate, and 30+ years later, most of the rest of the country has decided they don’t give a shit either.
The thing is, it was not necessary. Graduating from college is impressive enough. One degree is fine. You don’t need “three.” Same with law school. Unless you’re applying for a job with some big firm, right out of school, no one cares if you were in the top or bottom half of your class. Lies like this create more bad impressions than any good they could ever generate.
A lot of people do this. It’s sad and pathetic. Don’t lie about who you are or what you’ve done.
I guess people think their lie will impress people, but you never what will impress people. Maybe they would have liked you because of - or in spite of - your perceived “shortcomings.” And maybe your lie will still not be good enough.
What most voters really like is someone they can relate to as a real person, not a fake.