George Santos tells new lies in an interview

A reappraisal of George Santos: Why the New York Times is trying to ruin the good name of Senator-elect George Sentos, aka Joseph Cairo Jr

“I believe that George Santos deserves an opportunity to address the claims detailed in the article,” said Joseph Cairo Jr., the influential chairman of Nassau County’s Republican committee.

“Every person deserves an opportunity to ‘clear’ his/her name in the face of accusations,” Cairo added, saying he looks forward to hearing Santos’ response.

As for claiming he attended Baruch College and New York University and received degrees in finance and economics, Santos told the New York Post that “I didn’t graduate from any institution of higher learning. I’m embarrassed and sorry for having embellished my resume.” But he also seemed to shrug this lie off. “We do stupid things in life,” he said.

“It is no wonder that the New York Times is trying to ruin the good name of congressman-elect Santos,” said Joseph Murray.

Some people have questioned his education and employment histories as well as the public claims he has made about his biography. In the first time he has spoken publicly about the controversy,Santos acknowledged that he had fabricated some facts.

Rep. George Santos: The New York Republican who made up a fictional character, and why he didn’t have a college degree

Only in this country can a person who hails from a basement apartment rise to become a successful business person and run for congress.

In an interview with WNYC radio last month,Santos claimed that his employees were killed at the gay nightclub in 2016 when a man opened fire.

At the time, there were people that worked for me in the club. Four employees from my company lost their jobs at the time.

In an editorial before the election, the North Shore Leader newspaper endorsed Santos’ Democratic opponent, Robert Zimmerman, and voiced skepticism about Santos’ credibility.

McCarthy has yet to commented on the controversy surroundingSantos’ biography, even though he desperately wants the speakership.

Rep. George Santos, the New York Republican who fabricated a large portion of his biography, sat down for an extended interview with Piers Morgan – and lied about his lies.

I’m not a criminal. Not here, not abroad, in any jurisdiction in the world have I ever committed any crimes,” Santos said in an interview with WABC radio host John Catsimatidis.

I don’t think I’m a fraud to get down to the nit. I’m not a criminal who defrauded the entire country and made up this fictional character and ran for Congress. I’ve been around a long time. I mean, a lot of people know me. They know who I am. They have done business with me, he said.

“A lot of people over state on their resume, or twist a little bit to make themselves sound better,” he said. “I’m not saying I’m not guilty of that.”

That was a poor choice of words. He was offered an exciting opportunity with Goldman Sachs but it was not the highlight of his career, according to his campaign website.

He told the Post that he didn’t have a college degree, despite having degrees from New York University.

The New York Times first revealed last week that it was a fictional biography. CNN confirmed that he had college education and employment history.

Last year, he claimed to have maternal Jewish grandparents who escaped the Holocaust and fled Europe for Brazil. Multiple genealogists tell CNN that there is no proof for this story and that the records list those grandparents as having been born in Brazil. Santos said that his grandparentsfalsified a lot of their documents while in Brazil to make it look like they were born there, and that he ordered four DNA test kits.

On Monday, after a CNBC reporter tweeted a debunking of Santos’ claim to Morgan – telling Santos that he had not called himself “Jew-ish” in the speech and had actually “suggested to the crowd you were an incoming Jewish lawmaker” – coalition chief executive officer Matt Brooks tweeted in support of the debunking: “Fact check: TRUE!” Brooks said in a statement in December: “We are very disappointed in Congressman-elect Santos. He deceived us and misrepresented his heritage. He had previously claimed that he was Jewish.

CNN has reached out to House GOP leadership and the National Republican Congressional Committee in the wake of Santos’ admissions. House GOP leadership was silent amid last week’s revelations. Kevin McCarthy was asked if he was concerned about misrepresentations.

In a newly drawn District covering parts of Queens and some nearby Long Island suburbs,Santos defeated Robert Zimmerman and gave the Republicans control of the house. Republicans dominated New York suburbs on their way to winning a House majority.

The resume was published by the New York Times in January, and it was reported that Santos gave it to the committee during his unsuccessful 2020 run. County Republican committee chairman Joseph Cairo said at a January press conference that, while seeking the committee’s endorsement in 2020, Santos “submitted a resume which is totally untruthful.”

How Does George Santos of New York Get What You Want to Do? The Don’t Want It To Happen If You Have Not Met a Fabulist

The author of the book “Ok Boomer, Let’s Talk: How My Generation Got Left Behind” is a journalist based in New York. Follow her on Twitter @JillFilipovic. The opinions expressed in this commentary are her own. CNN has more opinions on it.

What happens when Rep.-elect George Santos of New York goes to Washington, DC, in January will be a real test of today’s Republican Party. Is honesty and integrity unimportant? Is GOP leadership power-hungry that it will allow a serial Fabulist to remain in office, even after deceiving the public, and the voters, about some parts of his biography?

For example, he claimed he worked at Goldman Sachs and Citigroup, listing specific roles he held in these organizations. Now he says he simply liaised with both companies through his actual employment at the company Link Bridge, and that a simple “poor choice of words” gave a mistaken impression.

Santos said, “I’ve never met this man.” The main account holder on the Facebook page,Santos stated that he has set up ” many of them” for animals in need but they were managed by other people. He said Osthoff’s dog would have received the surgery if Osthoff had ever met Santos. He said that he is not going to deny that, if there is a GoFundMe page that they will present him with. I did not take the money from his dog, I never met him, and I did not take this case.

But let’s be clear – Santos is exactly who you don’t want in office. He is a man who has no problem lying for self-aggrandizement; a man who shows little remorse or accountability; a man who still insists on having political power despite being caught.

Why should anyone trust anything more than his own lies, given his pattern of lying and then downplaying them? And how should the GOP respond?

Republican Party leaders could certainly pressure Santos not to take office. They could publicly condemn him, and say that their party stands for honesty and will not stand for liars. That may end with their party losing the seat in a special election, but that’s hardly a foregone conclusion; and at some point, principles have to trump power. If he insists on taking office anyway, they have the option to launch an ethics investigation and/or deny him committee assignments.

He talked to conservative media outlets and insisted that he would take office next month as scheduled, despite not responding toNPR’s repeated requests for an interview.

He now acknowledges that isn’t true. He admitted that his claim of four of his employees being killed in the Pulse night club shooting was false.

Facts of the Things that Mr. Santos said in an Interview with the Nassau County Republican Committee on Elections 2020: “An Investigation into Campaign Finance Fraud”

“He is constitutionally entitled to his seat, since the constitution doesn’t disqualify candidates for lying,” said Richard Briffault, an expert on campaign law at Columbia University.

Santos struggled financially in recent years and sometimes couldn’t pay his debts. Some Democrats want an investigation into the source of moneySantos claims to have contributed to.

“All of Mr. Santos’s disclosures must be thoroughly investigated by the Federal Election Commission…for campaign finance fraud,” said Rep.-elect Dan Goldman, a New York Democrat who won a House seat last month, in a statement.

In interviews,Santos blamed the liberal media for raising doubts about his past, and said he still has support of voters in his Long Island district.

Here is a fact check of some of the things Santos said in the interview, which was posted online on Monday. It is not meant to be a comprehensive list, but there are statements that can not be immediately proven or disproven.

Morgan reminded Santos that he had claimed he attended Horace Mann, an elite private preparatory school in New York City, before having to leave in his senior year because his family faced financial difficulties – but that Horace Mann told CNN that it has no record of him attending.

It’s also worth noting that Santos’ claim that “I was there for six months of ninth grade” is a significant discrepancy from a claim he made on a YouTube show during the 2020 campaign, when he said he only left the school “four months to graduation.”

When Morgan claimed on his resume that he had an impressive GMAT score, the resume was not furnished or supplied by him. When Morgan asked who supplied it, Santos said, “I have no idea where that came from.” He said, “I didn’t supply it, and nobody related to me supplied it.” I am still trying to figure out where that came from.

Facts First: Santos “personally presented” this resume to the Nassau County Republican Committee at an in-person meeting while he was seeking the committee’s support in the 2020 election, committee spokesperson Mike Deery told CNN on Tuesday.

Morgan asked Santos about an allegation from a military veteran, Rich Osthoff, that Santos raised money online for Osthoff’s dying dog, while Osthoff was homeless in 2016, but never handed over the cash from the GoFundMe fundraiser. The FBI interviewed him about the allegations.

In a statement to CNN in January, the company said that when they received a report of an issue with the fundraiser in late 2016 they sought proof of the delivery of funds from the organizers. The organizer failed to respond, which led to the fundraiser being removed and the email associated with that account prohibited from further use on our platform.”

Why would a dog go to hell and back if he were a puppy? A comment by S.J. Pryman on the Patch.com blog

The crazy part was that anyone that knows me, knows I would go to hell and back for a dog, even though I have no clue what he is talking about. He described the story, first reported by Patch.com, as “just more of the pile on effect.”