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Everyone loves a good story. And one of the most popular is the fall from grace. The great athlete who hangs around too long and ends his career in mediocrity. The visionary artist who reaches the heights of influence only to lose it all with incomprehensible and judgmental public statements. Or the politician who rises to success with a lofty narrative—promising a share of the American dream he’s created for himself to those who follow him—only to be exposed as an obvious fraud and serial liar. Schadenfreude can be a real pleasure.
By all means, the New York Times broke a silly story last month with its reporting on the fabrications and predations of George Santos, the Long Island Republican who won election to Congress in a reliably Democratic district. A man who supposedly was the son of immigrants and rose through Baruch College and New York University to work at Wall Street titans Citigroup and Goldman Sachs. A man reportedly owns an $80 million family asset management firm and a real estate empire. A man whose pet rescue organization is said to have saved thousands of dogs and cats. And, according to an expanding web of reports from the Times and other outlets — and now even by his own admission — a man who apparently fabricated much — if not all — of his life story.
Why did it take so long for the truth to come out? Certainly various parties had an interest in knowing the truth before Election Day: New York voters 3rd Congressional District; Democrats are desperate to hold the House; Republicans worry about quality of candidates; donors from every side of the aisle who poured more than $6 million into the race.
As the journalists discovered—after looking into it in depth—Santos’ apparent fabulousness was extremely noticeable. His life story – in his own telling – was a daring feat of self-invention and pure imagination, full of inconsistencies and omissions. As reported by the Times and CNN, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Baruch College and NYU have no information about Santos as an employee or student. The IRS had no record of his charity. There appeared to be no prominent profile of his family firm or alleged real estate holdings. While he claimed four of his employees were killed in the June 2016 shooting at Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, a review of the occupational histories of all 49 victims showed no connection. While living in Brazil, he was arrested and charged with bouncing a check. In New York, he twice faced eviction lawsuits. And significant questions remain about his sources of income and wealth, potential misstatements about the personal financial disclosures he filed as part of his run for Congress, his family background and other topics — questions so breathtaking in scope that they are already attracted the attention of federal and state prosecutors.
As professional investigators, we couldn’t help but note that Santos’ life story was littered with red flags. And apparently some of his falsity was discovered before the election, or at least hinted at. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee said in a background investigation memo that the IRS had no records of his pet rescue charity. They asked “what is Santos hiding” about his “shady finances”? His defeated Democratic opponent said he “always knew Santos was committing fraud,” but his attempts to gain traction with the press were “drowned out in a gubernatorial race where crime was the focus.”
So why wasn’t the whole story told?
Autopsies examining why such efforts to “investigate the opposition” failed and why journalists failed to break the story cited many factors—a tight campaign schedule, complacency in a “safe” Democratic district, competing priorities for investigative resources, poor choice of messages from the Democratic Party, even outright incompetence.
The failure to thoroughly investigate Santos’ history before the election was an investigative failure — a failure to complete the meticulous, painstaking work that goes into verifying that people are who they say they are and not a figment of their overactive imaginations.
At a deeper level, it was also a failure of imagination, not of Santos but of those tasked with vetting him—a failure to imagine that the red flags identified in a cursory review of Santos’ history were just the beginning, a failure to imagine that a candidate for the US House of Representatives would make up his whole story. This was the story no one could see. If someone had seen it, if someone had imagined it, the outcome might have been different.
Santos’ story may be extreme, but it is not unique. The stories of power brokers, CEOs and wealthy heirs unravel. And this is a lesson for all of us. We choose to hire people, work with people, and invest in people based on the stories they tell and the possibilities and intentions those stories imply.
As much as we want these stories to be true, wishing doesn’t make it so.
Chris Ribeiro is a managing director at the global investigations firm Nardello & Co., based in New York; he conducts complex investigations for government agencies, law firms, multinational corporations and non-profit organizations. He was previously an intelligence analyst and was more knowledgeable in the CIA and the New York City Police Department.
Matt Bricken is a director in the Nardello & Co. office. in Washington, DC. Prior to joining Nardello & Co., he founded and led an opposition research consultancy serving candidates and political campaigns in 45 states and five continents.
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