Newly elected Congressman George Santos has been embroiled in controversy ever since it was revealed that he embellished not just significant portions of his resume, but also personal stories, like, for example, that he was the one first people to be diagnosed with COVID (he wasn’t) and that his mom was killed during 9/11 (nope).
The most recent whopper to be exposed is Santos’ claim that he was a volleyball champ at Baruch University, a college he never attended. However, in an interesting and alarming new wrinkle, it appears that Santos may not have pulled the lie out of thin air.
Via PEOPLE:
A new report suggests that some of the “key elements” of Santos’ story bear a striking resemblance to the resume of his former boss, Pablo Oliveira. Inside Edition reports that Oliveira, who was Santos’ boss at financial services company LinkBridge Investors, graduated from Baruch University, where he played on the school’s winning volleyball team and was a two-time All-American volleyball player. A LinkedIn profile appears to back up Oliveira’s resume, though little is known about LinkBridge itself.
Santos allegedly stealing his old boss’ resume is actually the second time this week that the embattled congressman has been accused of stealing people’s backstories. In a new Talking Points Memo expose on Santos’ shady campaign finances, Florida artist Toby Gotesman claimed that Santos’ allegedly got his false story about being the descendant of Holocaust survivors from her:
“I come from Holocaust survivors, rest in peace both of them. I sat with him, not one time did he mention anything to me about being Jewish or part of the Holocaust,” Gotesman said. “I had no idea. He told me he was Catholic.”
Once the story broke, Gotesman saw videos of Santos claiming to be Jewish and descended from survivors. She was stunned.
“I saw that on YouTube and I was like, holy shit. That’s when I thought he was a sociopath. It occurs to me now, I think that he got that idea from me. … He knew I was a Holocaust painter. He knew it very well. How do you sit down with a very famous Holocaust artist and not say a word about your own family?”
Despite the mounting evidence of Santos’ lies, House speaker Kevin McCarthy has refused to call for his resignation. “The voters of his district have elected him,” McCarthy told reporters. “He is seated. He is part of the Republican conference.”
Of course, it’s only a matter of time until Santos starts telling people that he’s the Speaker of the House, so maybe that will change McCarthy’s tune or he’ll ignore it and continue to cling to the Republican’s tiny majority. (Probably that.)
(Via PEOPLE, Talking Points Memo)