The Republican-majority House of Representatives awarded New York Republican Congressman George Santos seats on two of its committees on Tuesday, despite facing local, state, federal, and even international investigations for having lied in multiple personal, academic and work histories.
The most recent information to be denied is the one that maintained that his mother, Fátima Caruso Devolder, survived the attack of September 11 and was in the south tower of the World Trade Center when the tragedy occurred.
[George Santos will be part of two committees of the Lower House despite lying on his resume]
According to immigration documents obtained by NBC News, the sister network of Noticias Telemundo,
Santos's mother was in Brazil since 1999 without the possibility of entering the United States until 2003,
which dismantles her son's account of what happened that day.
The lie was first reported by The Washington Post, which shared the findings of investigator Alex Calzalreth who, through a
Freedom of Information Act
(FOIA) request, found immigration records showing that Santos' mother left last time from New York in 1999 and was readmitted to the country until April 2003, two years after the attacks.
Rep. George Santos, January 11, 2023. Patrick Semansky / AP
The false information was promoted by the Republican politician: he included it on his official website where he assured that she "was in her office in the South Tower on September 11, 2001, when the horrible events of that day happened."
Noticias Telemundo attempted to contact Santos at his office in Washington and in New York but has not responded to requests for comment.
[Democratic Congressional Leaders Call on Republican Colleagues to Cooperate with George Santos Investigation]
Despite having the support of the Republican leadership, now some of his colleagues in the House, the Republican representatives from New York, Anthony D'Esposito, Nick LaLota, Nick Langworthy and Brandon Williams have called on him to resign, something that Santos is refuses to do
The president of the Lower House, also a Republican Kevin McCarthy, for his part, responded that "the voters had chosen" Santos and that if there was any concern "it must go through the Ethics Committee", when asked by reporters who they asked if he would ask him to resign.
The list of inconsistencies does not stop growing.
It is not the only scandal Santos is facing, and not only in the United States.
Brazilian authorities announced in early January that they will revive a case against him that claims he spent nearly $700 in a clothing store in the city of Niterói, near Rio de Janeiro, and
paid with a stolen checkbook from his mother and a false name
when he was 19 years old.
Another of his alleged hoaxes has generated outrage as it would involve taking advantage of an animal with a terminal illness.
Rich Osthoff, a US Navy veteran, accused him of raising money in 2016 to operate on his service dog, but claimed Santos never gave him the $3,000 he got from donations.
They will investigate campaign donations from George Santos, the congressman who lied but refuses to resign
Jan 14, 202300:22
Other of his lies range from being Jewish and having ancestors who survived the Holocaust, to having graduated from Baruch College.
After an investigation by The New York Times newspaper that revealed that the representative lied about his resume and his education, Santos assured that he "embellished" the data on his professional career but "I am not a criminal," he assured the outlet. New York Post.
Despite this, the leaders of the House of Representatives granted Santos seats on the Science, Space and Technology Committee and on the Small Business Committee, according to Republican Party sources quoted by NBC News.
[This is George Santos, the congressman who lied multiple times in his campaign: "I'm not going to resign!"]
“I don't agree with everything [Santos] said and did.
I don't agree with any of that.
It's wrong," said the chairman of the Small Business Commission, Republican for Texas, Roger Williams, who maintained that there will be rules that he must follow within the committee.
McCarthy assured that the assignment of Santos was part of the protocol and that neither of the two commissions have a high profile.
George Santos will be part of two committees of the Lower House despite lying on his resume
Jan 18, 202300:38
Here are some of Santos' other claims that have been shown to be false:
He did not graduate from Baruch College, nor did he work for the Goldman Sachs investment group, nor the Citigroup company.
In an interview with the New York Post, he confirmed it: “I did not graduate from any institution of higher education.
I'm embarrassed and I'm sorry."
There is also no record of him signing up an animal rescue charity, as he allegedly did to raise funds for the war veteran and his ailing dog.
All of the above was revealed in an investigation by The New York Times.
He is not Jewish,
nor does he have ancestors who survived the Holocaust.
In the same interview he stated that he was Catholic but that “because I found out that my maternal family had a Jewish background, I said that he was 'somehow Jewish'”.
He does not own 13 properties.
“George Santos does not own any property,” he admitted.
He did not attend the Horace Mann School in the Bronx, as he claimed.
A school spokesperson assured CNN that there are no records of him as a student at the institution.
His mother did not "flee from socialism" in Europe
as she repeated on several occasions.
In 2020, she claimed that she was an immigrant from Belgium and moved to the United States.
None of his employees died in the massacre at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando in 2016. After his election, Santos claimed that he "had lost four workers" in the shooting, but the New York Times investigation revealed that none of the 49 victims worked in their companies.
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