Stay up to date with notifications from The Independent

Notifications can be managed in browser preferences.

George Santos caught lying about his mother’s 9/11 death and attendance at fancy NY prep school

He tweeted that she died six years ago and that she died after 9/11.

Eric Garcia
Wednesday 18 January 2023 19:07 EST
Comments
Election 2022 House Santos
Election 2022 House Santos (Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved)

Your support helps us to tell the story

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.

Your support makes all the difference.

A series of tweets show that Republican Representative-elect George Santos of New York possibly told contradictory stories about his mother’s death and potentially lied about attending a preparatory school.

In November, Mr Santos won a seat in New York’s 3rd district when Republicans won multiple seats in the Long Island area. But since then, he’s come under fire for multiple fabrications about his resume.

On Wednesday evening, multiple people on Twitter noted that Mr Santos seemed to give contradictory stories about how his mother died.

On 12 July of last year, Mr Santos tweeted that 9/11 “claimed my mother’s life.”

But on 23 December of that same year, he tweeted that day marked “5 years since I lost my best friend and mentor” in reference to his mother.

Republican lobbyist Liam Donovan later tweeted part of Mr Santos’s campaign biography that says his mother was in the South Tower during the terrorist attacks.

“She survived the horrific events on that day, but unfortunately passed a few years later,” the bio reads.

Liberal media watcher PatriotTakes later found an interview with Mr Santos where he said both of his parents were at the World Trade Center on September 11 but said “fortunately none of them have passed.”

As it turns out, the whole thing was made up: His mother was later found to have said in immigration papers that she was not in the US in September of 2001.

In addition, CNN reported that he attended the prestigious Horace Mann, a prestigious preparatory school. But the school said it had no record of him attending.

“We’ve searched the records and there is no evidence that George Santos (or any alias) attended Horace Mann,” spokesman Ed Adler told CNN.

The tweets are just the latest examples in a series of contradictory statements, embellishments and outright falsehoods that Mr Santos seems to have made.

The New York Times published a story showing that Baruch College, from which he said he graduated in 2010, had no record of him doing so.

Similarly, it found that the Internal Revenue Service had no record of a charity he had reportedly founded and that neither Goldman Sachs and Citigroup had any record of his employment at those firms despite him saying so.

In addition, The Jewish Daily Forwardreported that despite his claiming Jewish heritage that his parents fled persecution, his mother’s parents were born in Brazil, rather than in Eastern Europe. He later said that he was “Jew-ish.”

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in