George Santos: Can the Republican spin his way out of his web of lies?

Published

2 years ago

May 10, 2023

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A Republican US congressman who admitted lying on his CV is to face criminal charges, officials have confirmed.

Details of the federal indictment against George Santos, who represents New York’s Long Island, have yet to be confirmed, but he could appear in court as early as today.

Federal prosecutors have been examining false statement allegations in Santos’ campaign filings.

The US politician is at the centre of a web of extraordinary revelations and accusations covering everything from his heritage to jobs he simply never held.

Described by critics as a “total fraud”, he is accused of fabricating parts of his resume while running for Congress. While he denies some of the allegations made against him, he has admitted that some of his claims were lies.

So far he has refused to step down and has previously tweeted that he is cooperating fully with a House Ethics Committee inquiry.

Here’s a round-up of Mr Santos’s claims, how we got here and what could happen next to the controversial congressman.

Who is George Santos?

It’s a seemingly simple question, but one that is becoming increasingly difficult to get a straight answer to. Here is what we know for sure.

The Brazilian-American, 34, was elected to represent New York’s 3rd Congressional District in November 2022, becoming the first openly gay Republican to win a House seat as a non-incumbent.

While his victory caused a buzz around Capitol Hill, it was soon dimmed by allegations starting in December over his resume.

A New York Times investigation found a number of false claims Mr Santos made on his CV including lies over his education and previous jobs.

From there, it’s all unravelled.

His responses have varied too. He has admitted that some were lies, rejected others and has backtracked on a few too.

He’s ‘Jew-ish’ not Jewish

Mr Santos has made conflicting remarks over being Jewish, taking part in a drag performance in Brazil and the circumstances around his mother’s death.

So let’s start with his heritage.

After his victory, he told the Republican Jewish Coalition summit, the election meant that “now there will be three” Jewish Republican members of Congress.

But then afterwards, he backtracked and told the New York Post he “never claimed to be Jewish”, and said he was Catholic adding: “Because I learned my maternal family had a Jewish background, I said I was ‘Jew-ish’.”

He said 9/11 ‘claimed his mother’s life’ – records show she wasn’t in the country

It’s also quite confusing when you take a look at the conflicting reports over the death of Mr Santos’s mother, Fatima Caruso Devolder.

While running for Congress in 2021, Mr Santos tweeted that the 9/11 terrorist attack in New York “claimed his mother’s life”.

Yet on his campaign website, Mr Santos said his mother was in her office in the South Tower on the day of the terrorist attack but “survived” and died “a few years” later from cancer.

However, records obtained by Sky’s affiliate NBC News and reports by the Washington Post citing immigration records, suggested Ms Devolder had not even been living in the US at the time of the attack and was in fact living in Rio de Janeiro.

He has not publicly commented on that since.

‘Sue me for having a life’

Now on to one of the latest claims about the congressman’s performance at a drag show.

A Brazilian performer, who uses the drag name Eula Rochard, told Reuters she befriended the now-congressman in 2005 in Brazil.

She said in 2008, he competed in a drag beauty pageant in Rio using the drag name Kitara Ravache.

While the congressman first called the reports “categorically false” on Twitter, when confronted on camera, he told US channel ABC7 – “I was young and I had fun at a festival – sue me for having a life.”

The Trump effect

Political strategist Rina Shah said only a “handful” of Republicans are calling for Mr Santos’s resignation and his behaviour echoes the “Trump effect”.

The former senior staffer to two Republican Congress members described him as a “conman”.

She told Sky News: “The situation certainly highlights the Donald Trump effect. The impact of the 45th President, a real style of running to just regularly make claims to be boastful in a way of things that were simply not true and proven to be untrue.”

She added that Mr Santos has “taken on” that style “in a defiant manner that says ‘come and get me because even if you try to get me, I’ll just continue to lie about it’.”

Despite the lies, Ms Shah said no top Republican will take action against him because they “cannot afford to lose” his House seat.

The Republicans won a razor-thin majority in the House following the midterms and she warned that Mr Santos’s removal could endanger the seat.

Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said he would withhold judgment on Santos, saying: “In America, you’re innocent until proven guilty.”

He didn’t work on Wall Street

While the list of accusations against Mr Santos has grown, he has admitted to lying about some things.

Mr Santos claimed on his campaign website he had a finance career working at Citigroup and Goldman Sachs – but the NYT investigation found neither institution had any record of his employment.

He admitted to lying about his education and the roles at the two firms and told the New York Post: “My sins here are embellishing my resume. I’m sorry.”

Stealing from a disabled veteran

But there are some cases where Mr Santos has flat-out denied certain claims.

He denied an accusation by veteran Richard Osthoff, who accused him of scamming him of $3,000 from a GoFundMe campaign page raised for his dying service dog in 2016.

Mr Osthoff told the news site Patch that he was told Anthony Devolder, one of the names Mr Santos used before entering politics, had a pet charity called Friends of Pets United.

He claimed Mr Devolder closed the page and disappeared after the funds were raised. Mr Santos has angrily denied the reports and called them “shocking and insane”.

What makes his ‘lies’ different?

While some may say lying in politics is not new, one psychologist specialising in lying and deception research explains why Mr Santos’s claims and accusations may seem a little different.

Dr Chris Hart, a psychology professor at Texas Woman’s University, told Sky News: “If we look at the lies most politicians tell they’re often exaggerations and half-truths. They rarely lie in such a way that they are making a claim which has absolutely no basis in reality and that’s where he is different.

“The frequency with which he appears to tell them is a bit surprising compared to other politicians.”

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‘I will NOT resign’

Revelations about Mr Santos’s lies and the allegations against him have caused anger among Democrats who have described him as a “total fraud” and are calling for him to resign.

House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries said he is a “complete and total fraud” and he “deceived and connived his way into Congress”.

Despite calls from some Republicans and Democrats, Mr Santos has repeatedly refused to resign.

For now, it seems he has no intention to go anywhere.

US

Trump’s tariffs hit the West’s busiest port – with traffic down by nearly a third

Published

24 hours ago

May 10, 2025

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Trump's tariffs hit the West's busiest port - with traffic down by nearly a third

Driving south from Los Angeles along the coast, you can’t miss the San Pedro port complex. Dozens of red cranes pop up from behind the freeway.

The sound of industry whirs as containers are unloaded from hulking ocean liners on to waiting lorries and freight trains that seem to never end.

The port of Long Beach combines with the port of Los Angeles to make the busiest port in the western hemisphere.

The colourful metal containers contain anything and everything, from clothes and car parts to fridges and furniture. Around $300bn of cargo passes through here every year and 60% of it is from China.

But at the moment, it’s far less busy than usual. Traffic is down by a third, compared with this time last year.

In the closest part of the mainland United States to China, this is Donald Trump‘s new tariffs policy in action, the direct result of frozen trade between the two countries.

“For the month of May, we expect that we’ll be down about 30% from where we were in May of 2024,” Noel Hacegaba, the port of Long Beach chief operating officer, tells Sky News.

“What that translates into is fewer ships and fewer containers. It means fewer trucks will be needed to transport those containers from the port terminal to the warehouses. It means fewer jobs.”

‘We’re barely surviving’

Helen Andrade knows all about that. She and her husband, Javier, are both lorry drivers. Helen only got her license in the last few years, so when work dries up, she is likely to be impacted first.

“I’m lying awake at night worrying about this,” she says.

“We’re barely surviving and we’re already seeing work slowing down. In my case, there are two incomes that are not going to come in. How are we going to survive?”

Helen adds: “I’m scared for the next two weeks, because over the next two weeks, I’m going to see where this is going, whether I have saved up enough money, which I know that I have not.”

In Long Beach, one in five jobs is connected to the port. But what happens in the port doesn’t stay here.

The shipments reach every part of the country and already, a shortage of certain items imported from China and price hikes are taking hold.

A short drive away is downtown LA’s toy district, a multicultural area consisting of a dozen streets of pastel-coloured buildings, home to importers and wholesalers of toys, much of which is imported from China.

One woman in a toy warehouse is reading a Chinese newspaper. She points to a headline about the 145% tariffs.

“I can’t afford this, I can’t afford this, I’m going to have to put prices up,” she says, exasperated.

Empty shelves

Around the corner is a party shop, selling gift bags and wrapping paper. There are empty shelves which would otherwise have been full.

“These empty spaces are where we stopped importing from China because the tariffs are too high,” says the owner, Jacob Mok.

He tells Sky News: “I’ll keep watching China and America negotiations. I hope as soon as possible they reach a deal because this is very hard for us.”

Jacob is not alone. The impact is being felt throughout the supply chain.

US trade secretary Scott Bessent will meet his Chinese counterpart in Switzerland this weekend.

Pressure is growing on Mr Trump’s team to strike a deal with China and do it quickly.

US

From Chicago’s south suburbs to Rome: Dolton’s faithful say ‘Bob’ was the boy destined to be pope

Published

24 hours ago

May 10, 2025

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From Chicago's south suburbs to Rome: Dolton's faithful say 'Bob' was the boy destined to be pope

He was the boy from the small town with big dreams of becoming pope.

Robert Prevost, or “Bob” as they knew him in Dolton, south Chicago, was the youngest son of Louis, a teacher, and Mildred, a librarian.

Devoted in their faith, they were prominent figures in St Mary’s Church.

Scott Kuzminski remembers “Millie”, the chorister, with the “voice of an angel”, and her son with a calling on his life.

“Some children dream to be the top soccer player, or rich or something, and he dreamed he was going to be the Pope,” he said.

The railroad runs through this sleepy suburb, now destined to become a place of pilgrimage.

That’s an answer to prayer for Kathleen Steenson, who believed from childhood that her church would give the world a pope.

She said: “Our faith in this little parish is so strong… and in my little mind, I thought, the next pope has got to come from here because we’re such a great little community.”

St Mary’s Church, where the Pope served as an altar boy before entering the priesthood, is derelict now, symbolic of the challenges.

But to many, this is holy ground, illuminated by the colours cast by the sun shining through the stained glass.

And at the Cathedral of the High Name in the heart of Chicago, there’s a renewed sense of optimism.

“It’s a miracle and a great blessing,” a man leaving a celebratory mass for the new pontiff told me.

A woman, who had also been in the congregation, added: “I hope that he can help people to see beyond the divisions of the country and remember the poor.”

“It’s not just the virtues that he extols,” said another man, “I’m hoping he’ll bring inspiration to all of us to preach love and that the people in Washington will listen.”

Earlier this year, Cardinal Prevost, as he was then, questioned President Trump’s stance on immigration and vice president JD Vance’s interpretation of Christianity.

Leo XIV is the first Pope from North America, but spent years as a missionary in Peru, South America.

And it’s his pastoral heart that’s giving cause for hope in a deeply divided America.

US

Lawyer for Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs claims there was ‘mutual violence’ between him and ex-girlfriend

Published

24 hours ago

May 10, 2025

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Lawyer for Sean 'Diddy' Combs claims there was 'mutual violence' between him and ex-girlfriend

A lawyer representing Sean “Diddy” Combs has told a court there was “mutual” domestic violence between him and his ex-girlfriend Casandra ‘Cassie’ Ventura.

Marc Agnifilo made the claim as he outlined some of the music star’s defence case ahead of the full opening of his trial next week.

Combs has pleaded not guilty to one count of racketeering conspiracy, two counts of sex trafficking and two counts of
transportation for prostitution. If convicted, he faces up to life in prison.

Ms Ventura is expected to testify as a star witness for the prosecution during the trial in New York. The final stage of jury selection is due to be held on Monday morning.

Mr Agnifilo told the court on Friday that the defence would “take the position that there was mutual violence” during the pair’s relationship and called on the judge to allow evidence related to this.

The lawyer said Combs‘s legal team intended to argue that “there was hitting on both sides, behaviour on both sides” that constituted violence.

He added: “It is relevant in terms of the coercive aspects, we are admitting domestic violence.”

Ms Ventura’s lawyers declined to comment on the allegations.

US District Judge Arun Subramanian said he would rule on whether to allow the evidence on Monday.

Combs, 55, was present in the court on Friday.

He has been held in custody in Brooklyn since his arrest last September.

Prosecutors allege that Combs used his business empire for two decades to lure women with promises of romantic relationships or financial support, then violently coerced them to take part in days-long, drug-fuelled sexual performances known as “Freak Offs”.

Combs’s lawyers say prosecutors are improperly seeking to criminalise his “swinger lifestyle”. They have suggested they will attack the credibility of alleged victims in the case by claiming their allegations are financially motivated.

The trial is expected to last around eight weeks.