U.S. Representative-elect George Santos (R-NY), who recently described himself as the third Jewish Republican in the House, admitted Monday that he had faked his Jewish identity in addition to other claims about himself.
As Breitbart News noted last week, Santos’s résumé came under scrutiny by the New York Times after the 2022 race, when the second-time candidate defeated Democrat Robert Zimmerman in the newly-drawn 3rd district.
The Times claimed that Santos had falsely claimed to have graduated from college and to have worked on Wall Street. Santos responded by claiming that the Times investigation was a “smear” to help the Democratic Party.
However, other journalists began digging into his background. The Forward, a left-wing Jewish news website, reported Santos may have faked his Jewish background, including a story about his family fleeing the Nazis.
On Monday, Santos admitted to the New York Post that the Times had been substantially correct in its investigation. He also said he was not actually Jewish, though he said he meant that he was “Jew-ish”:
Santos, elected to Congress in Nov. 8 to represent the Long Island- and Queens-based 3rd District, was also accused of lying about his family history, saying on his campaign website that his mother was Jewish and his grandparents escaped the Nazis during World War II.
Santos now says that he’s “clearly Catholic,” but claimed his grandmother told stories about being Jewish and later converting to Catholicism.
“I never claimed to be Jewish,” Santos said. “I am Catholic. Because I learned my maternal family had a Jewish background I said I was `Jew-ish.’”
Last month, Santos was celebrated at the Republican Jewish Coalition annual leadership meeting in Las Vegas, Nevada, as he claimed to be one of three Jewish Republicans in the incoming GOP congressional majority.
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