Newly elected George Santos has been at the center of a vast political controversy in the United States since Monday. The republican allegedly lied about his entire biography, going so far as to invent grandparents who fled Nazism during the Second World War. A potential fabric of lies which, however, could not prevent him from sitting in Congress.
Who is he ? Where is he from? What is he doing? Questions about George Santos have been piling up for decades. shocking revelations from the New York Times on the profile of this newly elected Republican in the House of Representatives.
At the moment the only certainties are that at the age of 34 “this son of Brazilian immigrants won in November 2022 [lors des élections de mi-mandat, NDLR] a New York neighborhood taken for granted by Democrats,” look at the news site Vox. A victory that also allows George Santos to become the first openly gay conservative to enter Congress without having previously held an elected office.
A 100% fake CV?
But otherwise, George Santos would be clean sheet. Indeed, he “built his candidacy on the idea of embodying the quintessential American dream,” when in reality he allegedly made it all up, says the New York Times.
The story that sold New York voters is that of a young man who would have managed to escape a disadvantaged background – poor family, school curriculum in the public [ce qui est considéré comme un handicap aux États-Unis, NDLR] – become a skilled financier rich in millions.
The bio she wrote for her campaign website – now only accessible at Web-archive.org – mentioned jobs with Wall Street giants like Goldman Sachs or Citigroup.
George Santos also says he has become “one of the youngest VPs in the industry [financier]A success story that would have allowed him to get rich and donate part of his fortune to various charities such as support for children suffering from epidermolysis bullosa – a very rare dermatological disease – and animal welfare through his NGO Friends for Pet.
This Republican would therefore be the ideal son-in-law of an America that still wants to believe in its “dream” of self-made man. Only the New York Times contacted Goldman Sachs and Citigroup, who denied knowing a former employee named George Santos.
Even the public university Baruch College, which would have conferred the degree on George Santos, has found no record of a former student with that last name. There is also an inconsistency in the dates. George Santos claims to have obtained a degree in finance in 2010 while the New York Times assures that at that time he was in Brazil where he had problems with the law for an obscure past of fraud on checks.
But the newly elected Republican is not only suspected of having invented his professional curriculum from scratch. The animal welfare organization that he claims he led has never been registered as a non-profit organization, contrary to what George Santos claims.
But Friends for Pet would have existed, notes the New York Times. The newspaper found traces of a fundraiser that this association organized for a project to help abandoned animals… but the beneficiary of this action – who preferred to remain anonymous – assured the New York Times – has never seen the color of money raised by Friends for pets.
After these revelations, George Santos remained silent. Only the lawyer spoke to him to assure that “it is not surprising that [son client] they have enemies in the New York Times who are trying to tarnish his good name with defamatory allegations.”
A financial mystery
Only the New York Times is no longer the only one to claim that George Santos is a “serial liar”. Other media found out that he also lied about his family history. Officially, her mother was born in Brazil to Jewish parents who fled persecution in the Ukraine to settle in Belgium before joining South America during World War II.
This family epic allowed George Santos to introduce himself as a “Latino Jew,” a politically significant label in a cosmopolitan city like New York.
However, there is no record of this exodus, says The Forward, an American Jewish newspaper that sought genealogical information from Brazilian authorities. A new story confirmed by CNN, which specifies that George Santos’ grandparents were born in Brazil before the Second World War.
Finally, there is the mystery of his finances. George Santos has been flying big in recent months, saying his latest job — at the helm of financial advisory firm Devolder Organization — helped him become a multi-millionaire. reports the North Shore Leader, a local Long Island, New York newspaper.
He also lent more than $700,000 to his campaign team and claims to own several buildings worth more than ten million dollars. Again, there is no record of any houses owned by him and as of 2020, he was still a tenant in a small apartment. Furthermore, his company does not declare any customers and nobody knows where the money comes from which it then transfers to its CEO.
Republican support despite everything?
“Congress has already had its share of scandals, but with George Santos it’s a totally unprecedented affair that’s shaking up this institution,” says Vox. How could this Republican believe he could get away with so much invention? “Part of the ‘genius’ of George Santos is that these ‘lies’ often concern quite trivial things. For example, who would come up with a degree at Baruch College rather than Harvard? Director of the Center on American Policy at University College London.
He could also feel empowered in his approach by the general political context in the United States. After Donald Trump’s excesses in the White House, “we no longer know very well what an unacceptable scandal is in the United States,” said Richard Johnson, a specialist in American politics at Queen Mary University of London.
It may seem equally astonishing that such gross lies slipped by its hapless opponent in the November 2022 election. The party only validated another candidate very late, meaning it didn’t have much time to do extensive research on its rival. observes Richard Johnson.
These lies could get him in legal trouble. False statements, including financial ones, during the campaign will likely earn him a hefty fine and up to five years in prison. But “it’s very difficult to prove malicious intent in this kind of business,” notes the New York Times.
Icing on the cake, despite the avalanche of revelations, “the Republican Party could support it as long as possible,” said Jon Herbert, a political scientist at Keele University. As such, the George Santos case is “a perfect example of the intensification in the United States of ‘negative political bias’, the concept whereby a party agrees to defend positions that might appear unacceptable because it prevents the opposition from gaining points”. says Richard Johnson.
George Santos has, in fact, won a district far from being acquired by the Republicans. If the latter no longer wants him in Congress, there will be a new vote “and there is a good chance that the Republican Party will lose a seat when the balance of power is already very tense”, summarizes Jon Herbert.
For now, George Santos can also count on the very opportunistic support of Kevin McCarthy, who is seeking the position of Speaker of the House of Representatives. Indeed, he is the leader of a group of Republicans who are very divided over his appointment as head of the House of Representatives, note the experts interviewed by France 24. George Santos had the excellent idea of announcing his support for Kevin McCarthy’s candidacy… the day the New York Times published its revelations about the much fictionalized biography of the “serial liar”.
