‘Did I embellish my résumé? Yes, I did,” Santos said in one interview. “And I’m sorry, and it shouldn’t be done. A
"I think he is the textbook definition of a con artist."
That is how Gregory Morey describes his former roommate George Santos in an interview with Inside Edition.
Morey is sharing his opinion of Santos just one day after his former roommate admitted to lying about his family fleeing the Holocaust during World War II as well as the colleges he previously said he attended and jobs he held after graduation.
"He is like a Queens version of 'Inventing Anna,'" says Morey, comparing the first openly gay, non-incumbent Republican to win election to the House of Representatives to the Netflix documentary about infamous Netflix documentary about fraudster Anna Delvey.
Santos, whose victory last month in New York’s Third Congressional District helped Republicans clinch control of the House, finally broke his silence on Monday after The New York Times reported it discovered his resume contained a number of false claims.
"Did I embellish my résumé? Yes, I did," Santos told City & State. “And I’m sorry, and it shouldn’t be done. And words can’t express 100 percent how I feel, but I’m still the same guy. I’m not a fraud. I’m not a cartoon character. I’m not some mythical creature that was invented.”
In an interview with the New York Post, Santos admitted he had never worked directly with Citigroup or Goldman Sachs, as he claimed during his campaign.
He also said that he did not attend Baruch College or New York University in that same interview. In fact, the 34-year-old congressman-elect said he never attended any college.
“I didn’t graduate from any institution of higher learning," Santos told the Post in that same interview. “I’m embarrassed and sorry for having embellished my résumé.”
He went on to admit that his family did not flee the Holocaust during World War II after records obtained by The Forward showed that his grandmother had been born in Brazil before the start of the war.
His campaign website, which has since been taken down, read, "George's grandparents fled Jewish persecution in Ukraine, settled in Belgium, and again fled persecution during WWII."
In his City & State interview, Santos modified this statement, saying, "I always joke, I’m Catholic, but I’m also Jew-ish — as in ‘ish.' I grew up fully aware that my grandparents were Jewish, came from a Jewish family, and they were refugees to Brazil. And that was always the story I grew up with, and I’ve always known it very well.”
Santos, who is the the first openly gay, Latino Republican to win a congressional race, made it clear, however, that he plans not to step down, despite these false claims.
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