Ogres, as Shrek once said, are like onions. Not because they smell or make you cry, but because they have many layers that truly only come out through slow, agonizing peeling. Similar to ogres are secrets, which reveal themselves one layer at a time, as you go deeper and deeper. And George Santos? Well, his secrets might be the most onion-like of them all– in more ways than one.
George Santos is a newly elected US House Representative (for New York’s third district). Among the many other first-term Republicans he shouldn’t stand out. But he does. Along with being the “first openly gay Republican to win a House seat as a non-incumbent,” Santos’ résumé, at first glance, is full of inspiring endeavors like founding an animal shelter, and a prestigious wall street job. As Santos himself put it, he, and his journey to Congress, were the “full embodiment of the American dream.”
What if these achievements were all lies? Mere fabrications? And what if it wasn’t just a job and a non-profit that Santos falsified, but an array of qualities and qualifications, ranging from his schooling to his ethnicity, and potentially fraudulent finances? That would be absurd. What would a congressman, meant to represent the people of his district fairly, obtain from misrepresenting his own life? Yet, it is clear, from the bombshell report that the New York Times published in December (when Santos was only a representative-elect), that he did indeed embellish many aspects of his life.
This was strikingly evident through Santos’ claims of being Jewish. Originally, throughout his time on the campaign trail, Santos referred to himself as “a proud American Jew.” And around a week after the success of his congressional bid, speaking at the Republican Jewish Coalition summit, Santos proclaimed that “there will be three,” meaning three Jewish and Republican members of the House of Representatives. His connection to the Jewish culture seemed to run deep, as he stated in a 20 21 Fox News interview, that his maternal grandparents had fled the Holocaust to Brazil, a point he tried to make against socialism. However, with the New York Times report, and further investigation into Santos’ genealogy, it was clear that his grandparents were very much Catholic, and very much born and raised in Brazil– not World War II Europe.

When asked about this, Santos stated that his words were misconstrued. That his maternal grandmother was Jewish but had converted to Catholicism. And that because of this flimsy (and not necessarily proven) connection, while he wasn’t Jewish, he was “Jew-ish.” This kind of rhetoric was Santos’ defense for most of his lies that had been outed. When his claim that he’d worked at Goldman Sachs was disproven, he responded that he’d worked at a company called Link Bridge, which was partners with Goldman Sachs, though he’d never worked “directly” with the Wall Street giant itself. For each similar lie that was exposed, Santos claimed that he had only worded his resume poorly, shifting any real blame for his lying that should’ve landed squarely on him.
The stories that Santos has spun about his personal life are concerning, but marginally inconsequential. However, these aren’t the only subjects he’s been lying about. Among this scrutiny, an investigation has been opened into Santos’ finances. He’s being accused of illegally keeping $700,000 of campaign money secret, and using it to pay for personal expenses. A federal investigation has been opened into the issue. This only emphasizes how dangerous and truly consequential the falsifications that George Santos has been pedaling are.
With Santos’ entire public life unraveling, it is unclear if anything of substance about him is even true. His word is clearly untrustworthy, as only outside investigations are peeling back his shrouded secret truth that’s obscured by the plethora of lies. Not only are these lies evident, but they are, in fact, as the onion layers go by, increasingly harmful and potentially illegal. And it’s clear that when you leave Santos’ secrets out in the sun– or the spotlight– too long, they’ll shrivel up, shocking you at their sheer falseness, and will ultimately be exposed for the ugly lies that they all are.