Incoming GOP congressman George Santos reportedly lied about his employment, his education, losing four employees in the Pulse shooting, his residence, and his religious background

• An incoming GOP congressman from Long Island has several gaps in his resume, according to news reports.
• He may have lied about his employment, his college degree, his residence, and his religion.

George Santos made history when he unexpectedly became the first non-incumbent out gay Republican to be elected to Congress in a "red wave" that swept New York state in the November midterm elections.

And according to several media reports, he may have a historically large amount of questions to answer about his resume.

A New York Times investigation found that Santos, who was elected to represent a Long Island district currently held by Democratic Rep. Tom Suozzi, may have made numerous misrepresentations of key aspects of his background, while The Forward has called his Jewish heritage into question. The Daily Beast also reported that Santos, who identifies as gay, ended a previously-undisclosed marriage to a woman in 2019, just before his first congressional bid.

Santos has begun to address the falsehoods in interviews with the New York Post and City & State New York. He's also now deleted the biography on his campaign website.

First, his description of his employment doesn't add up:

• His biography says he's worked at Goldman Sachs, but spokeswoman Abbey Collins told the Times there's no record of his employment at the company.
• A CNN investigation found that Santos had lied about criticizing Goldman Sachs at the SALT private equity conference, which is run by Anthony Scaramucci. The company and Scaramucci told the outlet that there was no record of Santos' attendance at the conference.
• He's also said he was an "associate asset manager" at Citigroup, but spokeswoman Danielle Romero-Apsilos told The Times it also couldn't confirm that he worked there, and said that the company sold off its asset management operations in 2005, which is five years before he claims to have graduated college.
• The Times found no IRS record of a charity he says he owns, Friends of Pets United, and the beneficiary of a 2017 fundraiser by the group told the Times that they'd never received any of the money that was raised.
• In interviews on Monday, he came clean and said he'd "never worked directly" for either Goldman Sachs or Citigroup and blamed the falsehoods on both a "poor choice of words" and the "elitist" New York Times.

Second, he's reportedly faced numerous evictions, claimed to be a landlord himself, and may not live at his current address:

• He was evicted in 2015 from a residence in Whitestone, Queens, after owing $2,250 in unpaid rent, per the Times. The landlord, Maria Tulumba, told the paper he was a "nice guy" and "respectful" tenant.
• He was evicted in 2017 from a residence in Sunnyside, Queens, after owing more than $10,000 in unpaid rent. Santos received a $12,208 fine.
• He claimed to be a landlord in 2021, but did not list any properties in New York on financial disclosure forms from either his 2020 or 2022 campaigns.
• The Times tried to interview him at an address where he's registered to vote, but a person there said they weren't familiar with him.
• His landlord, Nancy Pothos, told CBS that he moved out in August 2022.
• The Times found that he's now living in a home in Huntington, NY, outside the district, which he confirmed to the Post.

Third, his higher education history appears to be fabricated as well:

• In a campaign biography and in a 2020 interview, Santos claimed that he attended Horace Mann, a prestigious private high school in the Bronx. He said that he dropped out four months before graduation due to the 2008 economic crash, according to CNN. A representative for the school told CNN that there was no record of Santos' enrollment at Horace Mann.
• He's said he graduated with a degree in economics and finance from Baruch College, a public 4-year college in New York City, in 2010. But representatives from the school told the Times they had no record of his enrollment, despite searching multiple variations of his name.
• A biography on the National Republican Campaign Committee website says he went to New York University as well, but a spokesman for the university told the Times they had no attendance records that matched his name and birth date.
• "I didn't graduate from any institution of higher learning," he told the Post, admitting that he lied. "I'm embarrassed and sorry for having embellished my resume."

Fourth, there's still a mystery as to where his money is coming from:

• He's reported a $750,000 salary and $1 million from a now-dissolved entity called the "Devolder Organization."
• The firm had been described in numerous ways, including as his "family's firm" that manages $80 million in assets and as a capital introduction consulting company. He did not list any clients.
• He was also the regional director of Harbor City Capital, a Florida-based company, when it was accused of running a more than $17 million Ponzi scheme. He's publicly denied knowledge of the scheme, according to the Times.
• Santos has not fully explained this, only saying in an interview with City & State NY that when he opened his own "shop," it "just worked because I had the relationships and I started making a lot of money."

Fifth, he claimed to have lost four employees in the 2016 Pulse Nightclub shooting:

• He made the claim during an interview after his election, but the Times review found that none of the 49 victims of the Orlando shooting appeared to be associated with any of his firms.

Sixth, a report from The Forward on Wednesday raised doubts about his religious background:

• Santos's biography says his grandparents "fled Jewish persecution in Ukraine, settled in Belgium, and again fled persecution during WWII."
• But genealogy websites reviewed by the outlet found that his grandparents were born in Brazil prior to the Nazis' ascent to power in Germany, and a report from a Brazilian newspaper said that his great-grandfather immigrated to Brazil from Belgium in 1884.
• Additionally, neither of his maternal grandparents appear in the databases of Yad Vashem or the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, which maintain lists of European Jewish refugees.
• In an interview with Fox News, Santos had claimed that his Jewish family's last name was "Zabrovsky." A genealogist told CNN that there was no record of Jewish heritage in Santos' family tree, and the outlet reported that he used the name Anthony Zabrovsky while fundraising for a pet charity.
• Santos has said that he never claimed to be Jewish, just "Jew-ish," despite describing himself as a "proud American Jew" during his campaign. The Republican Jewish Coalition now says he lied to them.

Seventh, the Daily Beast reported that he was previously married to a woman:

• He divorced a woman named Uadla Santos in September 2019 — less than two weeks before filing paperwork for his 2020 congressional campaign, according to court records.
• That's despite him telling USA Today in October that he's "openly gay" and has "never had an issue with my sexual identity in the past decade."
• Santos never publicly disclosed his marriage to Uadla Santos and the Daily Beast couldn't find a record of a marriage to the man Santos says is his husband.
• He owned up to being married to a woman before, saying he ended the relationship when he came out as gay.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy still has not commented on the matter. On Wednesday, New York prosecutors in Nassau County announced that they have launched an investigation into Santos, according to the Associated Press.

Some Democrats have called on Santos to resign, but leadership has said that it's up to Republican leadership to handle the situation; theoretically, they could vote to expel Santos.

Incoming House Democratic leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York told reporters at a press conference this month that "we need answers" from the congressman-elect, joking that Santos is currently in a "witness protection program."