Rep.-elect George Santos, R-N.Y., admitted Monday that he lied about his job experience and college education during his successful campaign for a seat within the U.S. House.
Scott Olson | Getty Images News | Getty Images
Rep.-elect George Santos, R-N.Y., admitted Monday that he lied about his job experience and college education during his successful campaign for a seat within the U.S. House.
In an interview with the Recent York Post, Santos said: “My sins listed below are embellishing my resume. I’m sorry.”
He also told the newspaper: “I campaigned talking concerning the people’s concerns, not my resume” and added, “I intend to deliver on the guarantees I made throughout the campaign.”
The Recent York Times raised questions last week concerning the life story that Santos, 34, had presented during his campaign.
The Queens resident had said he had obtained a level from Baruch College in Recent York, but the varsity said that couldn’t be confirmed.
On Monday, Santos acknowledged: “I didn’t graduate from any institution of upper learning. I’m embarrassed and sorry for having embellished my resume.”
He added: “I come clean with that. … We do silly things in life.”
Santos had also said he had worked for Citigroup and Goldman Sachs, but neither company could find any records verifying that.
Santos told the Post he had “never worked directly” for either financial firm, saying he had used a “poor alternative of words.”
He told the Post that Link Bridge, an investment company where he was a vp, did business with each.
One other news outlet, the Jewish American site The Forward, had questioned a claim on Santos’ campaign website that his grandparents “fled Jewish persecution in Ukraine, settled in Belgium, and again fled persecution during WWII.”
“I never claimed to be Jewish,” Santos told the Post. “I’m Catholic. Because I learned my maternal family had a Jewish background I said I used to be ‘Jew-ish.'”
Santos first ran for Congress in 2020 and lost. He ran again in 2022 and won within the district that features some Long Island suburbs and a small a part of Queens.