Alleged victim of a politically motivated assassination in broad daylight on Fifth Avenue in New York in 2021. Unreleased model on the Big Apple’s main fashion runway. Alleged Jew, descendant of Ukrainians who fled to Brazil to escape the Holocaust. Non-existent graduate from two New York faculties, as well as ghost player on the volleyball team of one of them. Fake employee of two big Wall Street companies. The identities and vicissitudes of life that George Santos, 34, a Republican congressman from Long Island, New York, has graced his resume do well with the rhetoric of alternative truth, that populist fiction in which a broad brush of veracity stamps truth from repressed irrevocable reality. Of all the untruths in his wake, only the photos of him at a drag queen competition in Rio de Janeiro 15 years ago – where he regretted not winning the award for his poor wardrobe – can be considered true .
The reality created by Santos, whose election and that of three other co-religionists in a traditionally democratic state helped give Republicans a majority in the House of Representatives in the midterm elections, is crumbling as the media debunks their ravings. Nor is he a Jew, as he said to enlist the support of Long Island’s sizeable Jewish community; Nor was he a volleyball star in his college years, nor did his mother work at the World Trade Center and survive the attack on the Twin Towers, he claimed, to earn the sympathy of his constituents. The Santos character is a sum of data as striking as it is easy to dissect, adding to his mystification, say his detractors, including some Republicans.
The deconstruction of the real Santos did not prevent him from raising the congressman’s file on January 3, without the party leadership having decided to stop a snowball that is growing with the days, marking potential scandals such as the financing of his campaign for countless suspects Spending just a penny under the bill limit, or his connections to a cousin of a businessman of a sanctioned Russian oligarch. The vain use of an affiliation like Judaism has put him in the crosshairs of the influential Jewish community; also in the LGTBQ community, for his ultra-conservative positions and for hiding until 2019 that he was married to a woman, although he has now openly declared himself gay and committed to a man. The District Attorney for Nassau County, which includes his affluent constituency, launched an investigation in late December into “the startling fabrications and inconsistencies” in his story that would “disenfranchise” him as a congressman. The prosecutor is also Republican.
In December, a month after his election, the first alarm sounded. The newspaper The New York Times reported irregularities in Santos’ CV, his fictitious university education and his inflated work experience. Immediately afterwards, journalist Andrew Silverstein exposed his Jewish roots; later the lie that his mother survived 9/11. “When I read the New York Times article, I was working on a story about Holocaust survivors, including a Ukrainian Jew whose family happens to live in the George Santos neighborhood. I know the stories of survivors and the one about his family seemed unlikely. He was confident that if it was true, he could easily find evidence. Since I couldn’t, I dug further and found evidence that both grandparents [maternos] They were born in Brazil before World War II,” explains Silverstein.
He tried to solve his Jewish ancestry with a pun in English that was difficult to translate into Spanish: instead of Jewish (jude) he declared himself “related to Jews” (jew-ish) and again alluded to the ancestors of his mother, the presumed survivor of the September 11. “False associations with tragic events,” Silverstein insists, “represent an attempt to monetize pain for political ends, and that is morally unacceptable.” “I’ve received emails with reactions from descendants of Holocaust survivors and they’re very angry,” adds the New York journalist, who didn’t have a hard time proving that his grandparents weren’t Jewish Holocaust refugees, reflecting the contempt for the confirmed facts that Santos built his character. “To prove that his mother was not in New York on 9/11 required documents from the government, which took time.” On that day in September 2001, Fatima Devolder was in Brazil.
No one, not his party leaders, not the Democrats, not the media, caught on to his lies ahead of last November’s midterm elections. Once the deception is discovered, “open investigations will begin at the local and state levels. Also a case in Brazil [por el uso de un talonario de cheques robado]. Some Republicans, particularly those in New York, don’t want him in Congress, but House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has said only that if the Ethics Committee investigating him is found guilty of a crime, he will be disfellowshipped or asked to resign his seat . That can take years,” says Silverstein.
Subscribe to EL PAÍS to follow all the news and read without limits.
Subscribe to
New Year’s Eve with Trump
Favor with Favor: McCarthy’s lukewarmness may have been due to Santos’ support in the difficult vote as Republican Majority Leader in the House of Representatives. Politically, Santos is on the ultra side of the Republicans; In his day, he boasted photos on his social media of having attended the luxurious New Year’s Eve in 2020, the first of the pandemic, at Donald Trump’s Florida residence, during which he was allegedly subjected to harassment from his rivals and the alleged assassination attempt in New York a few months later. This week he refused to attend a reception for new members of Congress hosted by President Joe Biden at the White House; with him some of those who most torpedoed McCarthy’s election as Speaker of the House. The spokesman cracked down on journalists this week who questioned why he continued to defend him. McCarthy’s cold reply was that Santos was legitimately elected.
His last known troll is said to have walked the runway at New York Fashion Week, according to a man who shared an apartment with him and his family in 2013. Santos then went by Anthony Devolder, his mother’s surname, and assured the source he would be posing for Vogue magazine. He also allegedly scammed a veteran who raised a few thousand dollars to treat his ailing dog. Megalomania, swindles and pathological lies: the umpteenth twist of the screw in the universe of alternative truths that the most radical sector of Republicans has been rehearsing since the days of the Tea Party. Both Santos and his classmate Marjorie Taylor Greene, a representative of the party’s most ultra faction, have just been promoted to two congressional committees. As if the improbable, however strange, had taken control of the story.
Follow all international information on Facebook and Twitteror in our weekly newsletter.
Subscribe to continue reading
Read without limits