The freshman GOP Congressman has been at the center of countless scandals already.
George Santos has been accused of sexual harassment by a former volunteer, according to a letter posted by Santos’s accuser to Twitter on Friday. Here’s what we know about the claim so far.
The allegations
Derek Myers, 30, said he was an “unpaid volunteer performing staff duties with the promise of employment and compensation” in late January 2023. Myers alleges that on Jan. 25, Santos asked him if he had a Grindr profile and shared that he had one.
Later that day, Myers says he was “alone with the Congressman in his personal office going over mail correspondence” when Santos “insisted” Myers sit next to him “on a small sofa.” Once there, Santos placed his hand on Myers’ left leg, near the knee, and invited him to karaoke, the letter states. Myers alleges Santos then moved his hand down to Myers’ inner thigh and touched his groin, then said, “My husband is out of town tonight if you want to come over.”
Myers claims that his job offer was withdrawn on February 1 after he was “questioned about matters that had already been disclosed in [his] conversations with hiring managers.”
Last year, the Scioto Valley Guardian, of which Myers was editor-in-chief at the time, published courtroom testimony of a convicted murderer-turned-state’s-evidence. A judge had ruled the witness would testify off camera and without audio, but the Guardian was able to obtain a recording of the testimony from “a courthouse source who is authorized to have their cell phone in the room.”
Upon publication of the testimony, Myers was charged with wiretapping — a charge the nonprofit civil liberties group FIRE called “bogus” and “in violation of the First Amendment, federal, and state law.”
Santos told Semafor that he decided not to hire Myers because he says Myers was “evasive” when questioned about the wiretapping charge.
Myers said he filed both a report to Capitol Hill Police and a House Ethics complaint, the latter because he did work as an unpaid volunteer before becoming a formal staff member.
“His word against mine”
Myers acknowledged that “there’s no corroborating evidence whatsoever” regarding his sexual harassment allegation, and, “it’s simply going to be his word against mine” — though he told CNN that another staff member may have witnessed Santos’s alleged remarks about Grindr.
Since he was elected to Congress, New York Republican congressman George Santos has been making headlines as key pieces of his past have repeatedly been called into question. Santos has not only lied about where he attended school and about certain jobs he claims to have held, he has also been accused of obtaining campaign funds through illegal means — and he’s facing local, state, federal, and international investigations over his many deceptions.
At this point, it might be easier to list what Santos hasn’t stretched the truth about, but here are just a few of his most egregious lies…
His schooling
Santos claimed he attended Horace Mann School but left during his senior year because his parents “fell on hard times” as a result of the 2008 recession, but a spokesperson told CNN that there was no record of Santos having attended the school. He also said he attended both Baruch College and NYU, although neither school could confirm his attendance. He later admitted to the New York Post that he “didn’t graduate from any institution of higher learning.”
His grandmother being a Holocaust survivor
Santos’s campaign bio said his grandparents “fled persecution during WWII” and he later said on a podcast that his grandmother survived the Holocaust. He said his “maternal family had a Jewish background” which was not corroborated by genealogy records — and multiple records show his maternal grandparents were born in Brazil.
His mother being in 9/11
Santos’ website previously claimed that his mother was working in the twin towers during 9/11, and that she “passed away a few years later when she lost her battle to cancer.” In 2021, he tweeted that “9/11 claimed my mother’s life.”
NBC News has noted a key discrepancy in Santos’ account. Though 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.” Also? some pretty official-looking documents appear to show that she was in Brazil the day the towers fell.
His employment history
Santos previously said that he’d worked at Citigroup and Goldman Sachs. He now says that he worked for both banks via a third company… but has failed to come up with any evidence to support this claim.
He’s also yet to explain how the investment firm he founded in May 2021 — only to shut it down in 2022 for failing to file paperwork — became so wealthy so quickly.
His finances
In 2020, when he ran for Congress the first time, Santos filed a disclosure stating he made $55,000 annually as a vice president at a company called LinkBridge Investors. According to testimony under oath by LinkBridge’s founder, though, Santos was not a VP but a freelancer who worked on commission. That same year, Santos started working at an investment firm called Harbor City Capital — a company the Securities and Exchange Commission accused of being a Ponzi scheme in April 2021.
In May 2021, Santos incorporated his own company called Devolder, where he claimed to have earned between $3.5 and $11 million by helping rich people purchase luxury items (like boats and planes). Santos said Devolder was managing $80 million in assets despite the firm not listing any clients in his campaign financial disclosure.
There are also large sums of campaign donations whose origins aren’t accounted for. Santos admitted that a total of $625,000 which he claimed were personal loans actually weren’t — but he has not disclosed where the money came from. A group called RedStone Strategies, which is not registered as a political group with the Federal Election Commission, donated $25,000 to Santos’s campaign.
