The Talented Mr. Santos: A congressman-elect’s unraveling web of deceptions

Before George Santos, 34, made a name for himself in politics, he had insisted on being called Anthony — one of his middle names — and often used his mother’s maiden name, Devolder, eventually incorporating a company in Florida with that name.

“He hated that we called him George,” a former friend and onetime co-worker said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to avoid being associated with him publicly. “His whole family called him Anthony. He wanted to be called Anthony. He would use the name Anthony Devolder.”

With echoes of the fabulist protagonist at the heart of “The Talented Mr. Ripley” book and movie, Santos has spun an elaborate web of lies and deceptions about his identity and his past, according to acquaintances, public records, media reports and, in some cases, by his own admission. He also claims to have suddenly come into millions of dollars in wealth over the past 18 months, even as the financial data company Dun & Bradstreet estimated in July that his private family firm, the Devolder Organization, only had $43,688 in revenue.

He said he is part Black. He said he is the grandson of Holocaust survivors. He claimed he helped develop “carbon capture technology.” He claimed to have worked at companies that never employed him. He claimed to be a graduate of two universities, only to admit that he has no college degree at all. He even said his parents’ financial hardship forced him to leave the prestigious Horace Mann School in the Bronx “months” before he could graduate. But that claim and numerous others have either been shown to be false or lacking evidence by The Washington Post and other news organizations.

Even by the low standards for truth-telling in politics, the scope of Santos’s falsehoods has been breathtaking. It has surprised Democrats who researched him and missed so many details, as well as Republicans who vouched for him.

In an unsuccessful House race in 2020 and his successful race for New York’s 3rd Congressional District in November, Santos pitched himself as a gay man of Brazilian descent at home in the Republican Party of Donald Trump. He spoke at a rally in D.C. on Jan. 5, 2021, telling the assembled crowd one day before the deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol: “Who here is ready to overturn the election for Donald Trump?”

In interviews as a congressional candidate, he described himself as “the American Dream.”

He told Lara Trump in an interview this year, “I’m a business guy. I’ve done private equity for 11 years in New York,” adding that he “had the privilege of doing business” with the Trump Organization. He told another interviewer, “I’ve gone up the chains of Wall Street. I’ve developed many companies. I’ve opened my own business.” His campaign website said he had previously worked at Goldman Sachs and…