Less than a year after it first became clear that George Santos was a serial liar of the highest order, the New York congressman’s time in Congress has drawn to a close. On December 1, 2023, he was officially expelled from the House of Representatives, following the release of a report from the House Ethics Committee accusing him of, among other things, ripping off donors and spending campaign cash on himself. (For these things and more, Santos has also been charged by federal prosecutors. He has pleaded not guilty to everything and has said the Ethics Committee report is “littered in hyperbole” and “opinion.”)

As Santos lies like people breathe, it is virtually impossible to inventory literally all of his cons and deceptions, and one should simply assume that basically anything he says is not the truth. For the biggest and most absurd ones, though, here’s a handy-dandy guide.

According to federal prosecutors, while running for office Santos told a political consultant to tell would-be donors their money would go toward helping him get elected to the House of Representatives. Later, after two donors cut $25,000 checks, Santos allegedly spent the money on himself. What, specifically, did he splash out on? According to the House Ethics report, the money went to, among other things: purchases at Hermès and Sephora, meals, and OnlyFans.

Prosecutors also allege Santos stole donors’ identities and made charges on their credit cards, which most people could tell you is a very, very big no-no.

Is there anything more vile, f--ked up, and shameless than claiming you had family members who were hunted by Hitler as he systematically murdered 6 million people? Don’t ask Santos that, because he would clearly view the question as a challenge. In 2021, the then candidate said in a campaign video that his “grandparents survived the Holocaust.” Several months later, speaking with the Jewish News Syndicate, he said, “I’m very proud of my grandparents’ story,” which he claimed included “fleeing Hitler.” Speaking to Fox News Digital, Santos, perhaps girding himself for getting caught in a lie, declared: “For a lot of people who are descendants of World War II refugees or survivors of the Holocaust, a lot of names and paperwork were changed in name of survival.” However, that does not, in fact, appear to be the case for Santos’s family. According to genealogist Megan Smolenyak, who spoke to CNN, “There’s no sign of Jewish and/or Ukrainian heritage and no indication of name changes along the way.” Meanwhile, according to CNN, multiple genealogy records indicate that his grandparents were born in Brazil.

In a November 2023 interview with CNN, Santos claimed to have spent the 10 previous months obtaining proof that his grandparents really were Ukrainian Jews who fled Holocaust, but that his effort was being delayed because “unfortunately, Ukraine is in the middle of a freaking war.”

In an interview with The New York Times that was published in October 2023, Santos told reporter Grace Ashford that his young niece had been kidnapped from a playground in Queens, in what he implied may have been retaliation for his public comments about the Chinese Communist Party. A high-ranking member of law enforcement subsequently told Ashford that the matter had been looked into—and that there was no evidence of any kidnapping, period, or really any connection to the Chinese Communist Party. “We found nothing at all to suggest it’s true,” the official said. “I’d lean into, ‘he made it up.’”

Santos’s campaign website claimed that his mother “was in her office in the South Tower on September 11,” adding that she “passed away a few years later when she lost her battle to cancer.” On July 12, 2021, he wrote on Twitter: “9/11 claimed my mothers life.” While there have obviously been many people who have died as a result of the toxic debris they inhaled on 9/11, NBC News notes that although Santos has claimed his mother was a financial executive, “public employment records show only one employer for Santos’ mother: Imports by Rose, a company based in Queens that shuttered in 1994.” There’s also the awkward matter of documents indicating she was in Brazil on the day of the attacks.

In December 2022, Santos told a Brazilian podcast: “We have already suffered an attempt on my life, an assassination attempt, a threatening letter, having to have the police, a police escort standing in front of our house.” He also claimed to have been mugged, in broad daylight, on the corner of Fifth Avenue and 55th Street. 

You may or may not be surprised to hear that, to date, no evidence has emerged to support either of these claims.

One of the first lies Santos got caught in was claiming he had graduated from Baruch College with degrees in economics and finance in 2010, a college he did not even attend. Objectively even funnier? The fact that Santos reportedly told multiple people that he was the “star” of the Baruch volleyball team.

Incredibly, Santos went into even greater detail than that, saying in a 2020 radio interview that he:

• Attended Baruch on a volleyball scholarship
• Was part of the team that “slayed” Yale and Harvard
• Could have played basketball but went with volleyball because “it was easier”
• “Sacrificed both…knees” and “got very nice knee replacements…from playing volleyball” because “that’s how serious I took the game”

During the same interview, he also told the host: “We were champions across the entire Northeast Corridor. Every school that came up against us, they were shaking at the time. And it’s funny. I was the smallest guy and I’m 6 [feet] 2.” Naturally, according to the New York Post, the Baruch men’s volleyball team “never played Yale during the period Santos claimed to have attended school there.”

Santos’s employment history—which, no, did not actually see him working at Goldman Sachs or Citigroup—included time at a financial firm called Harbor City, which the Securities and Exchange Commission accused of running a Ponzi scheme and was later shut down. According to CNN, he insisted to a prospective investor that it was “100% legitimate,” despite having reportedly been told the firm had been accused of circulating fraudulent documents.

In 2008, Santos was charged with fraud by Brazilian prosecutors for stealing the checkbook of a man his mother was working for and then spending nearly $700 using a stolen checkbook and a fake name. He admitted to this in 2009 and then again in 2010. Then, he moved to the United States and reportedly stopped responding to authorities, who didn’t know his whereabouts. In an interview after many of his lies came to light, Santos insisted: “I am not a criminal here—not here or in Brazil or any jurisdiction in the world.” Prosecutors in Brazil have said they plan to re-charge him with fraud.

Ex-roommates of Santos—who know him as Anthony Devolder, the middle name he was going by as recently as 2019—have said he stole numerous items from them, including a Burberry scarf that he then wore to a “Stop the Steal” rally, where he claimed his unsuccessful 2020 bid for office had been “stolen” from him, just as the 2020 presidential election had been stolen from Donald Trump.

Santos has claimed—in a sworn statement!—that he was mugged while attempting to deliver a check for back rent owed to his Queens landlord. Shockingly, there is no record of this happening.

The Patch reported that in 2016, Santos—then going by Devolder—connected with a homeless veteran whose service dog had developed a life-threatening tumor and needed surgery that cost $3,000. According to the vet, Santos/Devolder set up a GoFundMe for the dog and, appealing to donors, wrote: “Dear all, When a veteran reaches out to ask for help, how can you say no […].” The necessary funds were raised and then Santos allegedly “disappeared” with the money and the dog died in January 2017. (Santos and his attorney did not respond to emails from Patch.)

Veteran. Homeless. Dying service dog. Yes, it really hits all the “Wow, this guy is a true piece of s--t” notes. (Santos has insisted the dying dog scheme never happened.)

In an interview with WNYC following his successful bid for Congress, Santos claimed that he’d “lost four employees” in the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando. Does it surprise you to hear that is not actually true, and that, according to the Times, not one of the 49 victims appear to have worked at any of the companies Santos has worked for? It shouldn’t!

In January 2022, the Post reported that a staffer working for Santos’s election bid would call rich donors and pretend to be Representative Kevin McCarthy’s chief of staff to raise money. Seemingly confirming that this crazy story did actually happen, McCarthy’s attorney told the outlet, “When this issue came to our attention last year, I raised it with the Santos campaign and felt it was resolved to our satisfaction.” While it’s unclear if Santos knew about this trickery at the time, it’s hard to believe he didn’t, given, uh, everything. 

In an interview with Curbed, pharmacist Yasser Rabello, who lived with Santos for a few months between 2013 and 2014, said he was regularly fed a deluge of lies. Per Rabello, said lies included that Santos, who went by Devolder at the time, was a model who was set to appear in Vogue. That may just be the wildest lie of them all. 

This post has been updated throughout.