The education, financial history and backstory of incoming Republican Rep. George Santos is being called into question afterThe New York Timespublished a story Monday revealing that much of the soon-to-be-lawmaker’sbackground is mired in mystery.
George Santos.Ronda Churchill/Bloomberg via Getty
Santos, who is 34 years old and the first openly gay Republican to win a House seat as a non-incumbent, has previously made a number of claims that theTimeswas unable to verify.
Santos has said he graduated from Baruch College in 2010 and, on a biography on the National Republican Congressional Committee’s website,cites a stint at New York University. According to theTimes, neither school could find a record of anyone matching his name or date of birth who had attended.
Santos has also claimed he worked at Citigroup and at Goldman Sachs, though neither company could verify his employment (an employee at Citigroup told theTimesthey were unfamiliar with his alleged role at the company, and had previously sold off the division which he claimed to be a part of).
His financial situation, too, is something of a mystery.
As Kedric Payne, the vice president of a campaign watchdog group and a former deputy chief counsel for the Office of Congressional Ethics, told the outlet: “This report raises red flags because no clients are reported for a multimillion-dollar client services company.”
Santos' financial situation is particularly strange given that, in years prior to his campaign launch, he appears to have struggled, with theTimesreporting that he was evicted from a Queens apartment in 2015 due to $2,250 in unpaid rent.
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During its investigation, theTimesdiscovered that Santos' past is littered with legal troubles; he was previously charged after confessing to stealing the checkbook of a man who was in his mother’s care in Brazil.
His current address is also in question, with theTimesreporting that a journalist went to the address where the New York Republican is registered to vote, only to find that the person who answered the door said “she was not familiar with him.”
As outlets includingAxiosreport, Santos' campaign seems to have scrubbed its website of some portions of his backstory, with references to Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and his animal rescue nonprofit all being removed in recent months, according to archives versions of the website.
Santos is set to begin his term in January.
source: people.com
