Santos must come clean about his record

In an October NewsdayTV debate, George Santos argued that he didn’t need to defend his past opinions. “I have no record,” he said.

It may have been wishful thinking.

A New York Times investigation published this week found gaping resume holes for Santos, a Republican newcomer who beat Democrat Robert Zimmerman in this year’s contest for New York’s 3rd Congressional District. Among the revelations were charges of check fraud in Brazil, where his mother once lived. The case for the 2008 incident remains unresolved.

Santos has said he worked for Citigroup and Goldman Sachs and graduated from Baruch College, though none of those organizations had records to back it up. And the Times story underscored how little we know about the Devolder Organization, which Santos once called his “family’s firm” and from which he reported a massive $750,000 salary plus over $1 million in dividends.

That’s a big jump from when Santos ran for the same office in 2020. An amendment to his personal financial disclosures then showed no assets, earned income of $55,000 from the year before, and just a single lump-sum of compensation larger than $5,000. Yet for this midterm election he lent his campaign over $700,000.

The editorial board has long had questions about Santos, who we said showed himself to be “too extreme to skillfully or appropriately represent Long Island in Congress,” as stated in our endorsement of Zimmerman in October.

In Santos’ two runs for office, we have cataloged the lack of clarity about his home address, his refusal to talk about his background, his eyebrow-raising campaign finance practices, and video of him saying that he “wrote a nice check” to help people involved with the Jan. 6 insurrection.

Other sketchy aspects of his background have emerged from places like The Daily Beast, including Santos getting a campaign cash boost from a Vladimir Putin-linked figure and working at a firm accused by federal regulators of being a Ponzi scheme (Santos, who denied malfeasance, was not named in an SEC complaint).

Santos now needs to answer questions, and provide proof, before new members are sworn into office on Jan. 3. Not settling these matters before entering the House is a betrayal of his constituents. Attacking the media is a smoke screen.

• What is the source of his wealth?
• Who are the clients of the Devolder Organization?
• What is the status of the check fraud case in Brazil?
• Where does he live? Was it where he was registered to vote?
• What is his actual education and work history?

Both the House Ethics Committee and U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District should investigate, in particular his opaque financial disclosures and whether he filed false statements to the Federal Election Commission.

Santos does indeed have a record. And constituents need to know it.