He has been the most scandal-prone and headline-mongering member of The House of Representatives in the history of the republic. George Anthony Devolder Santos, born on July 22, 1988, is an American politician who represented a Long Island district in The House. His controversial career began and ended in the same year: America discovered that he was a grifter.
It appears that large sections of his “life” have been fabricated, to the point where it is hard to tease out what is real from what is imagined. In a sense, this is a tale of his “inventions” imploding when the facts didn’t fit with the self-generated myths. Santos was the first openly LBGTQ+ member elected to Congress as a Republican. A son of immigrants from Brazil, who immigrated to the United States in 1984, Santos was born and raised in Jackson Heights, Queens.
He attended Intermediate School 124 in Woodside, Queens, and holds a GED certificate. From 2011 to 2012, Santos worked as a customer service representative at a call center for Dish Network in College Point, Queens. In Santos’ early work in politics, he was a part of a civil lawsuit in 2020 accused of being part of a Ponzi scheme.
The Santos House campaign rested on core Republican expressions of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. He was inspired by his parent’s legacy and he was more sympathetic towards the strength that comes with NY03 diversity. As an openly gay Republican Congressman, he emphasized the importance of every community having a voice. His story could have been a perfect expression of the American Dream. But, there were holes.
Santos has made tons of false and suspicious claims about his background, work history, criminal record, finances, ethnicity, religion and other statements both publicly and privately. Just six weeks after his election in January, news outlets reported that his self-published biography was largely incorrect and fabricated, regarding his education, ancestry, charity work, property and crimes of which he claimed to be a victim. He has even admitted to fabricating information about his education and employment history. In 2010, Santos confessed to committing check fraud in Brazil in 2008 but forgot to appear in court in 2011 leaving the case unresolved. In 2022, he was accused of failing to pay thousands of dollars from the opened case in 2010, which he admitted to. After years of accusations, court cases and unpaid dues Santos faced a possible expulsion from Congress.
On November 16, the Bipartisan Ethical Committee released a report regarding Santos’ allegation of finance fraud which included evidence of poor bookkeeping and misuse of campaign funds. On Friday, December 1st, the U.S. The House of Representatives voted on whether or not to expel Santos because of his criminal corruption charges and new accusations that he misused campaign money, according to Republican aides. The expulsion needed a two-thirds majority in the House, which Republicans controlled by a slim 222-213 majority, to pass. The Speaker of the House Mike Johnson reported that some Republicans might vote against his expulsion because his criminal case would not be resolved by then. At a news conference, Santos stated, “I personally have real reservations about doing this. I’m concerned about a precedent that may be set.”
The House voted on Santos’ expulsion due to the fabrication of his biography, an ethics investigation and a 23-count federal indictment charging him with wire fraud and money laundering crimes. The vote was 311-114 and NBC says “Santos already put his winter jacket on and left the chamber.”
Fieldston student Caleb Feldman (Form VI), an editor at The Fieldston Political Journal, said:
“The expulsion of George Santos was long overdue. Everything about him was a joke and he made a mockery of the legislative branch of our government. I cannot imagine how angry I would be if I was one of his constituents – especially if I had voted for him. He made our government look weak on the world stage, and the fact that it took this long to expel him from Congress is horrible; he should have been expelled the second these allegations came to light. But what happened was a series of headlines, each seemingly more embarrassing than the other, about this fraudster. The part that blows my mind is not the misuse of campaign funds, but the lies about his family’s connections to 9/11 and the Holocaust. It takes a special kind of dissembler to lie about genocide and terror attacks to gain political traction. I look forward to seeing him in an orange jumpsuit.”
