Inside the world of ‘compulsive fantasist and conman’ George Santos
When a nationwide politician is caught spending his marketing campaign contributions on X-rated on-line content material, it might usually be a scandal that elicits outraged calls for for his immediate expulsion.
In America, nevertheless, the declare — in a devastating House Committee on Ethics report launched in November — that US Congressman George Santos had used marketing campaign cash to subscribe to the express content material of mannequin Leila Lewis on the grownup web site OnlyFans, was greeted with a weary shrug.
After all, it was par for the course for an allegedly compulsive fantasist and conman with a style for the excessive life who a 12 months in the past admitted mendacity about his background and achievements — and but till in the present day was nonetheless openly sitting in Congress on an annual $174,000 (£137,000) wage.
Until in the present day’s historic vote through which 105 fellow Republicans joined Democrats and voted in addition him out, makes an attempt to disgrace Santos into resigning his put up for embellishing his CV and allegedly breaking federal legislation had proved totally fruitless. He turns into solely the sixth Congressman to be expelled from the House.
It has been some of the outrageous — to not say entertaining — political scandals to hit Washington for years. The Republican US Representative in New York stands accused of inventing virtually every little thing about himself to get elected, in addition to partaking in a jaw-dropping listing of prison actions.
George Santos (leaving U.S Capitol) turns into solely the sixth Congressman to be expelled from the House
He stormed off the House ground minutes earlier than the vote sealing his destiny concluded
Santos is surrounded by journalists as he leaves the U.S. Capitol after his fellow members of Congress voted to expel him
Beyond the commonly accepted info that he’s the New York-born, 35-year-old son of Brazilian immigrants, every little thing else about Santos has been up for debate.
Did he go to one among New York’s smartest personal academies — or a humble public college? Is he homosexual or straight, Jewish or Catholic? Did relations actually escape each the Holocaust and the September 11 terror assaults?
And did he really arrange a compassionate ‘animal charity’ or simply swindle a disabled veteran for whom he claimed to be fund-raising?
As Democrat congressman and former prosecutor Daniel Goldman has stated of Santos: ‘This is somebody who’s a premeditated serial liar, whose whole existence is a lie and a fraud.’
Yet for causes primarily of cynical political expediency — specifically to carry on to their occasion’s slim majority within the chamber — Santos’s Republican colleagues have beforehand dragged their ft over expelling him from the House and have defeated two earlier makes an attempt to vote him out.
The new House report additionally detailed how the creative Millennial spent tens of 1000’s of {dollars} of political donations on Botox therapies, designer garments — together with $6,000 (£4,700) in a single splurge at Ferragamo and $4,128 (£3,250) at Hermes — and spending sprees within the Hamptons and on line casino mecca Atlantic City.
Although a majority of House Republicans in the present day voted towards expelling him, the stunning report evidently proved an excessive amount of for a lot of of their colleagues.
Santos has rejected the report, denying any monetary impropriety, however confirmed that, to spare his household, he would not run for re-election subsequent 12 months.
Rep. George Santos (R-NY) is surrounded by journalists as he leaves the U.S. Capitol after his fellow members of Congress voted to expel him from the House of Representatives
In the now-public ethics report, Santos was discovered to have used marketing campaign cash and donations to fund a lavish life-style, engaged in fraud, filed false election experiences and ‘willfully’ violated ethics
Even so, he is because of go on trial in September subsequent 12 months on 23 federal fees protecting fraud, bank card theft, aggravated identification theft, false statements and stealing public funds. The contents of the brand new investigation could end in additional fees.
While two of his ex-campaign workers have already admitted associated fees, Santos, who has publicly confessed to being a ‘horrible liar’, is denying the costs and describes them as a ‘witch hunt’.
It’s a outstanding saga for a person who claimed throughout his congressional election marketing campaign final 12 months to be the ‘full embodiment of the American Dream’.
That daring boast began to crumble spectacularly inside weeks of profitable his seat in November final 12 months. He was initially hailed as the primary brazenly homosexual non-incumbent Republican elected to Congress, however the media quickly started reporting that his spectacular CV was a masterpiece of inventive writing.
After rising up in a basement in blue collar Jackson Heights, Queens, the first-generation American stated he was educated at one among New York’s most unique personal colleges, Horace Mann, earlier than happening to 2 prestigious metropolis universities the place he picked up a level and an MBA.
He acquired into the primary faculty, he stated, on a volleyball scholarship, and proved to be such a ‘star’ participant for his group that he ‘sacrificed’ his knees and needed to get them changed.
While two of his ex-campaign workers have already admitted associated fees, Santos, who has publicly confessed to being a ‘horrible liar’, is denying the costs and describes them as a ‘witch hunt’
After graduating, he went on to work in finance for 2 of Wall Street’s most illustrious companies — Goldman Sachs and Citigroup, investing his earnings in a family-owned actual property empire that encompassed 13 properties.
But simply after Christmas final 12 months — earlier than he even entered Congress in January — Santos admitted that lots of his CV claims have been made-up, although he most popular the phrase ’embellished’.
He hadn’t graduated from faculty, he’d by no means labored for these blue-chip firms and much from being a rich landlord, he really owed 1000’s of {dollars} in unpaid lease.
As for his employment historical past, effectively, former colleagues might verify he had a minimum of as soon as toiled for $12 (£9.45) an hour with them at a name heart in Queens.
Worse adopted. Despite campaigning as each homosexual and Jewish in liberal and numerous New York, it appeared he wasn’t both. Santos stated he lived along with his husband and 4 canines in Long Island. No such union had been recorded and it as an alternative emerged that whereas he had been married for seven years till 2019, it had been to a girl.
‘I dated girls up to now. I married a girl. It’s private stuff,’ he instructed the New York Post final December. ‘I’m OK with my sexuality. People change.’
But folks cannot so simply change their race. In his marketing campaign literature, he’d described himself as a ‘proud American Jew’ and claimed his mom’s mother and father have been Hungarian Jews who had twice fled anti-Semitic persecution, the second time escaping the Holocaust to Brazil.
In truth, investigators confirmed, his grandparents got here from Brazil and weren’t Jewish. ‘I by no means claimed to be Jewish,’ he protested in response. ‘I’m Catholic. Because I realized my maternal household had a Jewish background I stated I used to be ‘Jew-ish’.’ With some nerve, he accused detractors of ‘nitpicking’.
But why had he lied a lot? Having made a failed bid for Congress in 2020 — simply two years after he first dipped his toe into politics — Santos defined weakly that he fell sufferer to ‘the pressures of what I believed wanted to be accomplished [to get elected]’.
He took his seat in Congress at first of this 12 months, and one among his first acts there was to provide a speech on Holocaust Remembrance Day on January 27.
The embarrassing revelations about the actual George Santos solely continued.
He had claimed his finance government mom was in her workplace on the World Trade Center and died on September 11, 2001, when a hijacked airplane destroyed the constructing. He then denied having made such a declare and stated she died just a few years later — from most cancers attributable to poisonous particles associated to 9/11.
The congressman-elect stated in a 2021 tweet that, ‘9/11 claimed my mom’s life,’ nevertheless Fatima Devolder died in 2016 of most cancers and it is unclear if it was 9/11-related. It’s additionally unclear if she was an government or a housekeeper
However, when the catastrophe occurred she was really in Brazil, the place she lived and labored as a nurse till her demise in 2016.
A Rio de Janeiro drag queen named Eula Rochard claimed to be associates with Santos whereas he was in Brazil in 2005. She claimed he was calling himself ‘Anthony Devolder’ (Santos’s two center names) and likewise performing as a drag queen.
Another supply stated Santos usually appeared in drag pageants below the title ‘Kitara Ravache’ and aspired to be topped ‘Miss Gay Rio de Janeiro’. A livid Santos at first rejected these allegations as ‘categorically false’ however, as on-line commenters warmed to the concept of a drag queen Congressman, he made a U-turn. ‘I had enjoyable at a pageant,’ he countered in January. ‘Sue me for having a life.’
He’s additionally been accused of being accountable for a complete faux performing biography on Wikipedia for his alias ‘Anthony Devolder’, which claims he starred in varied TV exhibits together with Disney’s kids’s sitcom Hannah Montana and a film known as The Invasion starring Uma Thurman. The actress has, alas, by no means even made such a movie.
Other claims by Santos for which media investigators have discovered no proof embrace: serving to produce a 2011 Spiderman musical on Broadway, two Chinese males as soon as kidnapping his five-year-old niece from a New York playground, being the goal of an ‘assassination try’ after being elected and of a 2021 mugging in broad daylight on Fifth Avenue through which a robber took his briefcase and, curiously, his sneakers.
It’s been simpler to find situations the place Santos has been the accused. In May, he settled an impressive 2008 Brazilian fraud case, admitting to utilizing a chequebook stolen from his mom’s employer.
He can also be reportedly being investigated by the FBI over claims that, after establishing an animal-rescue charity known as ‘Friends of Pets United’ and promising in 2016 to lift cash to pay for life-saving surgical procedure for a disabled veteran’s service canine, he went off with $3,000 (£2,360) in on-line donations.
The canine did not get the surgical procedure and needed to be put down. Santos counters that his charity rescued greater than 2,500 animals between 2013 and 2018, however different pet homeowners have additionally accused him of by no means passing on 1000’s of {dollars} he raised on-line on their behalf.
No doubt a profitable e book deal and Netflix mini-series await to reward Congressman Santos now that Washington DC is lastly accomplished with him.
In the meantime, maybe one can have a sneaking admiration for the person, who requested why he thought he’d received his seat, had the audacity to level to Jewish voters and say: ‘We’re fed up with being lied to.’
