The biography of newly elected Congress member George Santos appeared fairly spectacular. The 34-year-old son of immigrants had graduated from Baruch School, a public faculty in New York, earlier than happening to work at corporations like Goldman Sachs and Citigroup. Santos finally turned a profitable financier who began an animal rescue charity. The issue is that biography was apparently a lie. As revealed in the New York Instances on Monday, it wasn’t simply that Santos exaggerated his résumé, he had allegedly invented it out of entire material.

The Instances discovered that he apparently didn’t graduate from Baruch School, he didn’t work for Goldman Sachs or Citigroup, there have been no data of him being a profitable financier, nor have been there of him registering his animal rescue charity. The Instances additionally discovered that he had been charged with test fraud in Brazil.

Additional, quite a lot of retailers have discovered no proof of Santos’s repeated claims to be Jewish, to have Jewish heritage, or to be descended from refugees fleeing the Holocaust.

Santos has indirectly denied any of the allegations. As an alternative, in a press release on Monday, which additionally included a quote wrongly attributed to Winston Churchill, his lawyer mentioned, “It’s no shock that Congressman-elect Santos has enemies on the New York Instances who’re making an attempt to smear his good identify with these defamatory allegations.” On Thursday, Santos adopted up on Twitter, promising “To the folks of #NY03 I’ve my story to inform and will probably be informed subsequent week.”

The story has sparked one of many more strange political scandals in American historical past. Members of Congress have dedicated homicide in workplace. In actual fact, a member of Congress has even killed one other member of Congress. Even within the current day, we’ve seen each scandal underneath the solar, from Anthony Weiner tweeting a lewd image of himself, to Marjorie Taylor Greene’s notorious Fb put up about Jewish area lasers. However it’s arduous to consider a precedent for a scandal like this.

Who’s George Santos?

There are some issues we learn about Santos. The brazenly homosexual son of Brazilian immigrants, he was elected in November to an open congressional seat that features a skinny slice of Queens and far of the North Shore of Lengthy Island in Nassau County. Santos defeated Democrat Robert Zimmerman by a margin of 54 % to 46 %. This represented a significant swing from 2020 when Biden had received the district by the identical margin. That yr, Santos ran in opposition to incumbent Tom Suozzi in the same district and misplaced handily by a margin of 56 % to 43.5 %.

The representative-elect can be a significant Trump supporter — a lot in order that he was at Trump’s Ellipse rally on January 6, 2021, and has repeatedly falsely claimed that the previous president received the 2020 election.

Additionally, for all his alleged mendacity about his résumé, it’s clear that one firm Santos labored at, Harbor Metropolis Capital, has been accused by the Securities and Trade Fee of being a Ponzi scheme. As for Santos’s different employment, he did spend a stint as a Portuguese language customer support agent for DISH Community a decade in the past.

What don’t we all know?

We don’t know loads. This ranges from primary info about Santos’s biography to particulars about his dealings with the Brazilian prison justice system, and all the pieces in between, together with the place he truly lives.

However most significantly, we don’t know the place Santos’s cash comes from. The Consultant-elect loaned his personal marketing campaign $700,000 in the course of the 2022 cycle and claimed an revenue of $750,000. He additionally listed hundreds of thousands of {dollars} in belongings together with an house in Rio De Janeiro price as much as $1 million and a seven-figure financial savings account. It’s a significant shift in fortune for somebody who was evicted twice, in 2015 and 2017, for failing to pay lease and had been taken to court docket for not paying money owed. Even in 2020, he reported revenue in just one class — compensation in extra of $5,000 paid by one supply — with no different belongings.

What occurs now?

Dan Goldman, a fellow representative-elect from New York and a former prosecutor, has urged that Santos face prison investigation for conspiracy to defraud the US in addition to submitting false statements to the Federal Election Fee.

In an interview with Vox, Goldman shied away from weighing in on whether or not Santos needs to be denied his seat in Congress. “I believe the larger query will not be whether or not I believe George Santos needs to be a member of Congress. The larger query is whether or not Kevin McCarthy and the Republican management assume that George Santos needs to be a member of Congress.”

Nonetheless, as of now, McCarthy wants Santos virtually as a lot as Santos wants McCarthy. The Republican chief is dealing with a revolt amongst hard-right Republicans against him turning into speaker of the Home in January. With the slim incoming GOP majority, it means McCarthy can solely threat a handful of defections for a place that requires a majority vote of the whole Home. Shortly earlier than the Instances’s story was printed, Santos endorsed McCarthy on Twitter.

Additional, as a result of Santos represents one of the vital Democratic seats in Congress held by a Republican, forcing him to resign underneath any circumstance is dangerous. It will be a troublesome seat for a Republican to carry in a particular election and a loss would additional imperil an already slim GOP majority.

Within the meantime, it’s a matter of ready for the subsequent shoe to drop. The workplace of New York Lawyer Basic Letitia James is already “trying into a few of the points which have come out.” As unsustainable as the present establishment may appear, the one impetus proper now for Santos to resign can be a way of disgrace, and it appears unlikely that he carries that burden.

Replace, December 23, 10:20 am: This story was initially printed on December 21 and has been up to date as extra particulars have been reported about Santos’s background.