New York Republican Rep.-elect George Santos has become an embattled political figure weeks before he takes office as his professional resume has come under scrutiny.
Now, Santos is facing allegations that his Jewish heritage may be anything but what he claims it to be.
Santos wrote in his campaign biography that his grandparents were born in Ukraine and escaped the Holocaust by fleeing to Belgium, before fleeing again to Brazil.
EMBATTLED GOP REP.-ELECT GEORGE SANTOS FIRES BACK AT NEW YORK TIMES AFTER BIOGRAPHY QUESTIONED
Republican Rep.-elect George Santos, right, is facing scrutiny about his professional and education resumes, as well as his claimed heritage.
(AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)
The scrutiny has drawn questions as to whether Santos is actually Jewish, as he has claimed.
“George’s grandparents fled Jewish persecution in Ukraine, settled in Belgium, and again fled persecution during WWII. They were able to settle in Brazil, where his mother was born,” his campaign biography page kicks off.
The Forward, a Jewish publication, cast doubt on Santos’ backstory in a report published Wednesday, where it delved into genealogy website myheritage.com and found that his grandparents had been born in Brazil, not Ukraine as the Long Island Republican had said.
In fact, Santos’ grandparents were born before the Nazis rose to power in Germany — his grandfather, Paulo Horta Devolder, in 1918, and his grandmother, Rosalina Caruso Horta Devolder, in 1927.
Additionally, an online obituary for Fatima Aziza Caruso Horta Devolder, Santos’ mother, who passed in 2016, said she was born in the Rio de Janeiro suburb Niterói on December 22, 1968, to Paul and Rosalina Devolder.
The Forward also reported that Santos’ mother’s Facebook page, which his page is tagged in, never mentioned the words “Jew,” “Jewish,” or terms like ‘Israel,’ ‘Yom Kippur,’ or ‘Shabbat.’
Santos’ mother did like pages on Facebook featuring Catholic content, with four out of the seven pages she had liked on the website being Catholic-themed. Another page was that of a Brazilian priest and singer.
The Forward also noted that Santos’ deceased mother regularly shared Catholic-themed posts and imagery of Jesus on her Facebook page, including a post eight months before she passed.
“The cross of Christ for some is a symbol of defeat, for us it is a symbol of salvation,” the post by Brazilian Christian group Tarde com Maria wrote in Portuguese.
Jewish publication The Forward threw water on Santos’ claimed Semitic heritage.
(AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)
Another post from the group adapts a Genesis quote, writing, “There’s an angel today, delivering from all evil.”
Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC) chairman Matt Brooks issued a statement on the report drawing scrutiny on Santos’ heritage, writing that the organization has reached out to the congressman-elect about the allegations.
“These allegations, if true, are deeply troubling,” Brooks said. “Given their seriousness, the Congressman-elect owes the public an explanation, and we look forward to hearing it.”
Santos’ heritage is not the only part of his backstory under scrutiny. The Daily Beast reported that the first openly gay Republican congressman-elect did not publicly disclose his marriage to a woman, Uadla Santos Vieira Santos.
The Daily Beast report found that Santos and his wife divorced in 2019. Santos launched his 2020 bid for Congress against Democrat New York Rep. Tom Suozzi less than two weeks after ending the marriage.
The congressman-elect’s campaign biography states that he lives on Long Island with his husband, whom he identified as a pharmacist to both U.S. and Brazilian media when talking about his engagement.
The allegations come after a bombshell Monday New York Times investigation into the embattled Empire State Republican that found his professional resume wasn’t up to snuff. The Times reported that Santos’ claims of past employment with Citigroup and Goldman Sachs could not be verified. Company spokespeople confirmed to Fox News Digital they had no records of Santos’ employment.
Santos’ claimed animal welfare charity also might not exist, as Internal Revenue Service (IRS) records have no results for Santos’ claimed nonprofit Friends of Pets United.
The congressman-elect’s college resume did not pass muster, either. Santos claimed to have graduated from Baruch College in New York City, but the school confirmed to Fox News Digital that there was no record of his attendance.
References to Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and Baruch College were scrubbed from Santos’ campaign website sometime between Oct. 21 and 27, according to archived screenshots taken by the Wayback Machine and first reported by Axios.
Santos, who flipped New York’s 3rd Congressional District into the GOP column in November, has called allegations that he lied to voters about his biography a “smear” and “defamatory.”
“George Santos represents the kind of progress than the Left is so threatened by – a gay, Latino, first generation American and Republican who won a Biden district in overwhelming fashion by showing everyday voters that there is a better option than the broken promises and failed policies of the Democratic Party. After four years in the public eye, and on the verge of being sworn in as a member of the Republican led 118th Congress, the New York Times launches this shotgun blast of attacks,” Santos said through his attorney, Joseph Murray.
“It is no surprise that Congressman-Elect Santos has enemies at the New York Times who are attempting to smear his good name with these defamatory allegations. As Winston Churchill famously stated, ‘You have enemies? Good. It means that you’ve stood up for something, sometime in you life,'” Murray said. That quote, while often attributed to Winston Churchill, actually originated with Victor Hugo in his 1845 essay Villemain. There is no evidence of Churchill ever saying it.
Santos put out a tweet on Thursday saying that he would respond to the allegations — “next week.”
“To the people of #NY03 I have my story to tell and it will be told next week,” Santos wrote. “I want to assure everyone that I will address your questions and that I remain committed to deliver the results I campaigned on; Public safety, Inflation, Education [and] more.”
Santos was immediately dogpiled over the tweet, with voices from both sides of the aisle going after the congressman-elect.
The allegations don’t bode well for Santos, who is facing calls to step aside or have Congress precent him from being seated.
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If the allegations are true, the New York Republican will have some explaining to do to his constituents for his fabricated backstory.
Santos’ campaign did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
Fox News Digital’s Chris Pandolfo and Kyle Morris contributed reporting.
