An internal report on lying Long Island Rep. George Santos’ political weaknesses laid out the Republican’s many fabrications more than a year before his successful 2022 run for Congress.
The 2021 “vulnerability report” compiled by Capital Research Group, LLC, reveals the 35-year-old’s many falsehoods about his education and employment history, according to some of those documents obtained by CBS News.
A portion of the 100-page report highlighted that Santos had claimed to hold degrees from Baruch College and New York University despite no corresponding record from either institution, had worked for accused fraudsters and scammers, had gotten into romantic entanglements with potential illegal immigrants of both sexes and held liberal stances on energy, immigration and health care.
The disclosures prompted three staffers affiliated with the Santos campaign to resign, a source familiar with the matter told The Post Friday.
Nassau County Republican chairman Joseph Cairo told the Post that his group would continue to call on Santos to resign over his falsehoods.
“The Nassau County Republican Committee has been clear about its position on disgraced congressman George Santos. He has no place in the Nassau GOP, and we have repeatedly called on him to resign,” he said in a statement. “With respect to a recently exposed ‘vulnerability report,’ the Nassau County Republican Committee became aware of its existence, along with the general public, through media accounts. We again call upon George Santos to resign as the first step in removing the stain he has placed upon the House of Representatives.”
Other portions of the report detailed Santos’ false claims about his mother being Jewish and his grandparents having escaped the Nazis during World War II, CBS News reported.
The truth-challenged GOP lawmaker later told The Post in December 2022 that he was “clearly Catholic” and his grandmother had told him stories about their Jewish heritage before converting to Roman Catholicism.
“I never claimed to be Jewish,” Santos said at the time. “I am Catholic. Because I learned my maternal family had a Jewish background I said I was ‘Jew-ish.’”
The Santos campaign paid $16,682.06 to Capital on Dec. 2, 2021, for the research documents, federal campaign filings show.
Reps for the campaign and the congressman’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Republican operatives were reportedly wary of Santos’ candidacy after seeing the report and for a time considered Michelle Bond, the girlfriend of newly convicted FTX executive Ryan Salame, to run for the Third District seat, the source familiar with the matter also told The Post.
Salame pleaded guilty on Thursday to two counts of criminal conspiracy for making illegal campaign contributions last year through the now-defunct crypto giant.
Bond, an actual Baruch graduate, instead ran in the First Congressional District, losing her primary to now-GOP Rep. Nick LaLota.
The Congressional Leadership Fund super PAC, which works to elect Republicans to the House of Representatives, also did not support the Santos campaign, the source confirmed.
Santos, 34, was indicted in May for allegedly having embezzled $50,000 in campaign funds to purchase designer clothing and pay personal expenses.
He pleaded not guilty and was released on a $500,000 bond that was posted by his father and aunt.
“Santos is a disgrace, and those who knew about him are a disgrace,” former New York Republican Sen. Al D’Amato told The Post. “He should resign, and he certainly should go to prison for the felonies which he committed.”
Some of the financial discrepancies detailed in the Santos indictment also appeared in the 2021 report, including a detailed look at his personal finances, which the congressman later claimed to include income and other assets worth around $11 million.
“Santos says his professional experience is working in finance and helping wealth grow,” the report reads, “but his personal financial disclosure filed with the Clerk of the House of Representatives shows no personal investments or assets.”
“Residents of New York’s 3rd Congressional District will be relieved when this is behind them — and they can elect a Republican like myself with unquestionable integrity and decades of proven law enforcement and global security experience,” retired NYPD detective Mike Sapraicone, who is challenging Santos in the 2024 primary, told The Post. “The Democrat-caused inflation, crime, and border crises are the issues I’m focused on addressing as we move forward.”