George Santos' congressional freshman yearbook entries come with questions
The entries for George Santos and Anthony D'Esposito for the 118th Congress’ New Member Pictorial Directory. Santos lists his address as "Long Island." Credit: Newsday/Mark Chiusano
Besides a photo and party affiliation, there are only three pieces of personal information in George Santos’ entry for the recently released 118th Congress freshman yearbook — and all three of them come with questions.
First in the “New Member Pictorial Directory,” parts of which were obtained by Newsday Opinion, comes “Residence,” which is listed for Santos as “Long Island.”
It’s a relatively uncommon way for a Nassau or Suffolk County local to explain where they live. Santos’ fellow incoming Long Island members of Congress cite more specific locations in their entries: Island Park for Anthony D’Esposito, and Amityville for Nick LaLota.
But that generic location follows a pattern of evasiveness for Santos, who has rarely been clear about his Queens or Island addresses.
Next is a line for “Education,” which the Santos entry lists as “Baruch College, B.S.,” a school he has said he graduated from in 2010. The college, however, has confirmed to multiple media outlets that it was unable to find records of Santos graduating in that year.
Finally, Santos’ entry in the directory cites his occupation as “Investor; Businessman.”
It is a relatively broad catch-all that tracks with the vague descriptions he has long given about his work history. His campaign biographies have described him as a “seasoned Wall Street financier and investor, with extensive work in capital introduction, real estate, capital markets, bio-tech and ETC.”
He has said he worked at Goldman Sachs, and at Citigroup “as an associate and quickly advanced to become an associate asset manager in the real asset division of the firm,” though both companies told The New York Times they couldn’t locate records of Santos’ employment.
In a 2020 interview during his first run for Congress, Santos told Newsday Opinion that he came from “an investment, private equity world,” and at the time was on leave from serving as regional director at Harbor City Capital, a company which was later accused by the SEC of operating as a Ponzi scheme.
“We were able to fund startup companies, we were able to work with entrepreneurs and seed fund projects that would have never seen $1 from anybody,” Santos said then.
The unspecific — and sometimes discredited — descriptions of Santos’ work history make it difficult to know exactly what he actually did and what professional requirements those roles would have. But what is clear is that he does not appear to have passed qualification exams administered by FINRA, a regulator for securities firms.
The BrokerCheck database for the independent regulator does not include any entries for Santos, under various combinations of his names.
Santos did not respond to requests for comment about these biographical details. But he has discussed the exams before, according to an individual who worked in the financial and life insurance fields and spoke with Santos in the summer of 2021. The individual told Newsday Opinion that Santos claimed a firm he had worked for had “fudged his credentials” and that “he didn’t need to take any of the Series exams.”
Under fire over various biographical issues, the victorious CD3 candidate said this week that “I have my story to tell and it will be told next week.” But more questions continue cropping, even about the most basic realities, such as if he is a U.S. citizen, a constitutional requirement to serve in the House of Representatives. Asked if Democrats had confirmed Santos’ claims that he was born in Queens, state Democratic Party chairman Jay Jacobs said they were checking.
“We are trying to verify,” he said. “Everything else about him is false.”
Columnist Mark Chiusano's opinions are his own.
Mark Chiusano is a member of the Newsday editorial board.
