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George Santos, the Republican congressman-elect who has come under fire for a growing list of inconsistent and false claims about his financial, employment, and familial history, is facing multiple investigations, including an inquiry announced on Wednesday by Long Island prosecutors.
“The numerous fabrications and inconsistencies associated with Congressman-Elect Santos are nothing short of stunning,” said Nassau Country District Attorney, Anne Donnelly in a statement to Newsday. “The residents of Nassau County and other parts of the third district must have an honest and accountable representative in Congress. No one is above the law and if a crime was committed in this county, we will prosecute it.” The New York Times reports that a federal investigation is also underway.
The probes come days after Santos, who was elected to the House in November, admitted to fabricating large parts of his resume and personal history. (The Republican attempted to downplay the fabrications as “embellishments,” claiming “we do stupid things in life.”) As my colleague David Corn reported, there are also several inconsistencies floating around Santos’ finances that he has failed to clearly address, including how Santos managed to funnel $700,000 into his recent congressional campaign.
Since his initial admission on Monday, the apparent lies and inconsistencies have only mounted. A new report from CNN uncovered the following:
CNN’s KFile uncovered more falsehoods from Santos, including claims he was forced to leave a New York City private school when his family’s real estate assets took a downturn and stating he represented Goldman Sachs at a top financial conference where he berated the company for investing in renewables.
CNN also reviewed more instances of Santos providing additional false history of his family’s background. In one interview, Santos said his mother’s family’s historical Jewish name was “Zabrovsky,” and later appeared to operate a GoFundMe campaign for a pet charity (which he falsely claimed was a 501(c)(3) nonprofit) under that alias. Genealogists CNN previously spoke with found no evidence of Jewish or Ukrainian heritage in his family tree.
Here is the clip we found of Santos claiming the Jewish name of Zabrovsky and a screenshot of his since-removed Facebook page using it for fundraising for his alleged pet charity.https://t.co/4g9bmFUL2f pic.twitter.com/p0tkjQtsdo
— andrew kaczynski (@KFILE) December 29, 2022
Another mystery? What Republican leaders plan to do about their prevaricating new colleague. But with only four Republican votes to spare, it’s increasingly looking like Kevin McCarthy is more concerned with his thin majority than any lying congressman in the ranks.
