Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) wants answers from incoming Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) about allegations he fabricated his biography.
Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Jeffries — who was chosen to be House Democrats’ leader in the next Congress — said, “At this moment, we need answers from George Santos. He appears to be a complete and utter fraud, his whole life story made up.”
“And he’s going to have to answer that question, ‘Did you perpetrate a fraud on the voters of the third congressional district in New York?’ Right now, George Santos appears to be in the witness protection program. No one can find him,” he continued.
Finally, Jeffries said, “We’ll see what happens on Jan. 3. It’s an open question to me as to whether this is the type of individual that the incoming majority should welcome to Congress.”
Watch the video below:
Jeffries: Santos appears to be a complete and utter fraud. Right now, George Santos appears to be in the witness protection program. No one can find him. pic.twitter.com/QXtaH9mHYK
— Acyn (@Acyn) December 21, 2022
At a separate point in his press conference, Jeffries joked that it seemed Santos was “starring in the sequel to ‘Catch Me If You Can.'”
Santos became the first openly gay Republican to win a House seat as a non-incumbent when he flipped a district held by Democrats in the November election.
He sold himself as a successful son of Brazilian immigrants who went to a public college in New York City and went on to become a “seasoned Wall Street financier and investor.”
Santos also claimed he had “an animal rescue charity that saved more than 2,500 dogs and cats.”
However, a review of his background by The New York Times failed to find evidence to back up his story.
The article stated, “Citigroup and Goldman Sachs, the marquee Wall Street firms on Mr. Santos’s campaign biography, told The Times they had no record of his ever working there.”
“Officials at Baruch College, which Mr. Santos has said he graduated from in 2010, could find no record of anyone matching his name and date of birth graduating that year,” it added.
According to The Times, there is “little evidence that his animal rescue group, Friends of Pets United, was, as Mr. Santos claimed, a tax-exempt organization: The Internal Revenue Service could locate no record of a registered charity with that name.”
In a statement, Santos’ lawyer, Joseph Murray, responded to the story, as he said, “After four years in the public eye, and on the verge of being sworn in as a member of the Republican led 118th Congress, The New York Times launches this shotgun blast of attacks.”
— George Santos (@Santos4Congress) December 19, 2022
“It is no surprise that Congressman-elect Santos has enemies at The New York Times who are attempting to smear his good name with these defamatory allegations. As Winston Churchill famously stated, ‘You have enemies? Good. It means that you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life,'” he continued.
NBC News notes the quote is “commonly misattributed” to Winston Church and actually “appears in an 1845 essay titled “Villemain” by Victor Hugo that predates the British leader.”
