WASHINGTON — An allegation that Rep. George Santos swindled $3,000 from a GoFundMe campaign for a disabled veteran’s dying service dog and new immigration documents showing his mother was not in New York on 9/11 as he had affirmed are only the latest events involving him in scandal.
Santos, RN.Y., has become a household name due to the controversy surrounding his brief time in office thus far. He admitted that he embellished his resume, from where he attended college and his professional experience to his «Jewish» heritage – but says he hasn’t committed any crimes and has no plans to resign. Even so, calls for Santos’s resignation have grown within his own party, and he is the subject of federal, state, local and international protests. international research
NBC News has repeatedly contacted Santos’s team for comment on their lies and other accusations against them.
Here’s a timeline charting the controversy:
November 3, 2020: Santos loses his first congressional bid to Democratic Rep. Tom Suozzi. He concedes two weeks later, on November 17.
January 6, 2021: Saints speaks at President Donald Trump’s rally in Washington, DC, leading up to the attack on the US Capitol, claiming their own elections were stolen. He later says in an interview that Trump was in the «full cool of it that day,» but that he did not go to the Capitol grounds on January 6.
June 10, 2021: Santos announces his second campaign for Congress, running to represent New York’s 3rd Congressional District. The campaign website biography of him includes that he graduated from Baruch College and was employed as an associate asset manager at Citigroup and Goldman Sachs.
September 6, 2022: Santos presents his personal financial disclosure report, claiming that his assets amount to $11 million. The massive increase in net worth since his 2020 campaign leads The North Shore Leadera Long Island newspaper, to raise questions about his finances.
November 8, 2022: Santos wins his second congressional bid in a race that made history in LGBTQ politics, marking the first time two openly gay congressional candidates have gone head-to-head in a general election.
November 19, 2022: Saints addresses the summit of the Republican Jewish Coalition, saying his election means «there will now be three» Jewish Republican members of Congress. Among other references to Judaism in his campaign for the 2022 Congress, Santos had distributed a position paper claiming to be «a proud American Jew».
November 21, 2022: In an interview with wnycSantos says he «lost four employees» in the shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, in 2016. The New York Times he later reported that none of the 49 victims appear to have worked at the various companies mentioned in his bio.
December 19, 2022: He New York Times publishes his bombshell investigation, reporting that Santos lied on his resume. Joseph Murray, Santos’ lawyer, dismisses the story in a sentencesaying that Santos was being smeared by «enemies» in the newspaper, and calls the allegations «libelous», without addressing the specific claims in The Times reports.
Representatives from Baruch and from New York University, where he is also said to have earned a degree, tell NBC New York They have no record of their attendance. Representatives for Citigroup and Goldman Sachs also told NBC New York that they have no record of his employment.
December 21, 2022: The front reports that Santos’s grandparents did not flee the Holocaust, despite the fact that his campaign website claimed at the time that «George’s grandparents fled Jewish persecution in the Ukraine, settled in Belgium, and again fled persecution during the Holocaust.» WWII». The report also questions his alleged Jewish ancestry. The Republican Jewish Coalition says it contacted Santos’s team in response to the story and said: «These allegations, if true, are deeply troubling.»
December 22, 2022: The New York attorney general’s office says it is «investigating a number of matters» related to Santos. In response, a lawyer for Santos says he «has not been contacted by anyone» from the attorney general’s office. and Santos himself tweets:: “To the people of #NY03 I have my story to tell and it will be told next week”.
December 26, 2022: Santos admits to embellishing his resume in several interviews with the New York media. He says City and State New York that he embellished his resume and that he is sorry, while stressing to WABC radio that you have “never committed any crime” in the United States or abroad. The interviews are among Santos’s first responses to the Times investigation.
In another interview on December 26 with the New York Post, Santos acknowledges some of the specific fabrications on his resume. He says that he did not graduate from Baruch College or any other institution of higher learning. He says his claims that he worked for Citigroup and Goldman Sachs were «a poor choice of words.» And when he is asked about his claims that his grandparents survived the Holocaust, Santos says: “I never claimed to be Jewish. I am catholic. Since I learned that my maternal family had a Jewish background, I said that I was ‘Jewish.’”
December 28, 2022: The Nassau County District Attorney opens an investigation into Santos, saying in a statement: “The numerous fabrications and inconsistencies associated with Congressman-Elect Santos are staggering. … No one is above the law and if a crime was committed in this county, we will prosecute.”
Also on December 28, Santos appears in foxnews, telling host Tulsi Gabbard, a former member of the House: “I am not a fraud. I’m not fake. I have made some mistakes,” adding that it is “not false” that she worked at Goldman Sachs and Citigroup.
January 2, 2023: The New York Times reports that “Brazilian law enforcement authorities intend to revive fraud charges against” Santos in connection with a 2008 incident involving a stolen checkbook, citing a spokeswoman for the Rio de Janeiro prosecutor’s office. NBC News has not independently verified the plans.
January 9, 2023: The Campaign Legal Center file a complaint with the Federal Election Commission accusing Santos’ campaign of using campaign funds to pay personal expenses and concealing the origins of a $705,000 loan Santos made to his campaign.
Also on January 9, CNBC and other media report that a member of Santos’s political team posed as House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s chief of staff to raise funds for the campaign. Santos’ attorney would not say whether Santos knew that a member of his team had posed as McCarthy’s chief of staff, CNBC reported.
January 10, 2023: Representatives Dan Goldman and Ritchie Torres, both DN.Y., file a complaint with the House Ethics Committee about Santos’ alleged “failure to submit timely, accurate, and complete financial disclosure reports.”
January 11, 2023: Nassau County, New York, Republican officials hold a press conference calling for Santos’ resignation, at which County Republican Chairman Joe Cairo also notes that Santos said not only that he went to Baruch College, but also that he was a «star» on the volleyball team. Four House Republicans follow soon after with their own calls for Santos to resign. Santos rejects them and tells journalists: «I will not resign.» He also tweets: «I will NOT quit!»
January 12, 2023: Santos says he will resign if «142,000 people» ask him to in an interview with Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., on «Steve Bannon’s War Room,» referring to the number of voters who backed him in the election.
January 17, 2023: Santos wins seats on two committees after some Republicans and many Democrats warned that seating him on major committees could pose a national security risk. He is appointed to the Small Business Committee and the Science, Space and Technology Committee.
January 18, 2023: NBC News and other outlets obtain immigration records showing that Santos’s mother was not in the US on September 11, 2001, after he claimed that she was in the South Tower of the World Trade Center and survived the attacks of September 11.
Also on Jan. 18, a disabled veteran accused Santos of taking thousands of dollars raised on GoFundMe for his service dog to undergo life-saving surgery. Saints reply on twitter:: “The reports that he would let a dog die are shocking and crazy.”
January 19, 2023: Santos says any claim that she performed as a drag queen is «categorically false» after a Brazilian drag performer shared on social media an image of her and another dressed person, whom he identified as Santos. NBC News has not independently verified the images.