George Santos Bio
George Anthony Devolder Santos is an American former politician and convicted felon who served as the U.S. representative for New York’s 3rd congressional district from January to December 2023. Elected as a Republican in 2022, he became the first openly LGBTQ Republican elected to Congress as a freshman, and he remains the first Republican ever expelled from the House of Representatives. His brief tenure was defined by revelations that large parts of his biography, education, and employment history were fabricated, leading to a federal indictment, a guilty plea, and an 87-month prison sentence later commuted by President Donald Trump.
Early Life and Background
George Anthony Devolder Santos was born on July 22, 1988, and was raised in Queens, New York. His parents are Gercino Antônio dos Santos Jr. and Fátima Alzira Caruso Horta Devolder, both of whom have Brazilian roots. According to Santos, his parents could not agree on a single first name, so they gave him two: his mother preferred Anthony, which she always used, and he later went by George on the suggestion of a local Republican activist who liked the sound of it before his first run for Congress. He was raised Catholic and attended public schools in the borough, including P.S. 122 The Mamie Fay School and I.S. 125 Thomas J. McCann in Woodside, and he ultimately earned a GED.
From a young age, Santos was involved in civic activity in New York, and he later described his early years as shaped by his family’s deep interest in politics, particularly their support for the Brazilian right-wing leader Jair Bolsonaro. He worked briefly as a customer service representative at a Dish Network call center in College Point, Queens, from October 2011 to July 2012, a period that overlapped with claims he later made about working on Wall Street.
Path to US Politics
Santos first moved toward electoral politics in 2019, when he launched a long-shot Republican campaign against Democratic incumbent Tom Suozzi in New York’s 3rd congressional district. Although he lost that race by a wide margin, his fundraising energy and party loyalty impressed local Republican officials, and he quickly began positioning himself for another run. He formed a leadership PAC, GADS PAC, and continued to court donors, including at events at Mar-a-Lago with Donald Trump’s children, building relationships with figures such as Representative Elise Stefanik, who endorsed him in 2021.
When Suozzi announced in late 2021 that he would not seek re-election, Santos became the prohibitive favorite for the Republican nomination. Despite a commissioned vulnerability study flagging serious problems, Santos pressed on, donating generously to the Nassau County Republican Committee and securing its endorsement. He went on to defeat Democrat Robert Zimmerman in the 2022 general election, flipping the district and helping Republicans retake the House.
George Santos Career
Early Career (2019–2021)
Santos’s entry into U.S. politics began with his 2020 congressional campaign, an effort most observers expected to fail. Despite being registered to vote outside the district at the time, he raised funds, attended party events, and presented himself as a successful Wall Street financier, a claim neither Citigroup nor Goldman Sachs could verify. His 2020 loss to Suozzi by roughly 13 percentage points did little to dim his political ambitions.
Following the defeat, Santos founded GADS PAC and spent the next two years preparing for a rematch. He cultivated ties within the New York Republican establishment and built a national donor network, with Stefanik’s 2021 endorsement and fundraiser helping him raise more than $100,000. By the time Suozzi stepped aside, Santos had positioned himself as the clear Republican standard-bearer in the district.
2022 Election Breakthrough
Santos captured national attention in November 2022 when he defeated Democrat Robert Zimmerman by 20,420 votes, flipping New York’s 3rd congressional district. His victory was part of a broader Republican wave that returned the House to GOP control, and he was sworn in on January 3, 2023. Almost immediately, however, reporting from outlets including The New York Times, The Forward, and Jewish Insider raised questions about his biography.
Within weeks, it emerged that Santos had fabricated or exaggerated key parts of his résumé, including claims of degrees from Baruch College and New York University, a 710 GMAT score, a volleyball career at Baruch, employment at major banks, and family Holocaust heritage. By early 2023, Santos admitted to lying about his education and work history, and several of his freshman Republican colleagues from New York publicly called for his resignation. He refused, retaining the support of House Republican leadership and keeping his committee assignments on small business and space, science, and technology, though he later voluntarily gave them up.
Congress and Expulsion Era (2023)
Throughout 2023, Santos voted largely with the House Republican leadership, supporting key bills and even backing Kevin McCarthy during the October 2023 vote that removed McCarthy as speaker. He was among the 71 Republicans who voted against the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023, and he later declined to support Steve Scalise as McCarthy’s replacement because Scalise had not personally courted his vote. In May 2023, a federal grand jury in the Eastern District of New York indicted him on 13 criminal counts, including wire fraud, money laundering, theft of public funds, and making false statements to the House.
On December 1, 2023, following the release of a damning House Ethics Committee report, the House voted 311 to 114 to expel Santos, making him the sixth member ever expelled, the first Republican, and the first member expelled without a prior criminal conviction or Confederate ties. He had served less than a year in office.
Federal Case, Guilty Plea, and Commutation
After his expulsion, Santos’s legal situation worsened. In August 2024, he pleaded guilty to wire fraud and aggravated identity theft, admitting under oath to the broader scheme outlined in the superseding indictment and accepting full responsibility. In April 2025, a federal judge sentenced him to 87 months in prison, ordered him to pay nearly $375,000 in restitution, and required him to forfeit an additional $205,000. Santos reported to Federal Correctional Institution, Fairton, in New Jersey on July 25, 2025.
On October 17, 2025, President Donald Trump commuted Santos’s sentence, resulting in his immediate release. Trump announced the move on Truth Social, calling Santos a “rogue” who had been “horribly mistreated” in prison. The commutation drew sharp criticism from members of the New York Republican delegation, including Representatives Nicole Malliotakis and Nick LaLota, both of whom had previously called for Santos’s expulsion. The Nassau County district attorney left open the possibility of state charges arising from the same underlying conduct.
George Santos Personal Life
Family Background and Personal Lineage
Santos was born to Gercino Antônio dos Santos Jr. and Fátima Alzira Caruso Horta Devolder, both connected to Brazil. He also spent time in Niterói, in the Rio de Janeiro metropolitan area, between roughly 2008 and 2011, where he was known to acquaintances as Anthony Devolder. According to former friends, Santos was active in local LGBT organizing during that period, and some acquaintances have said he performed in drag in Brazilian pageants under the stage name Kitara Ravache, a claim Santos has denied.
Personal Life
Santos is openly gay. He was married to a Brazilian woman from 2012 to 2019, a union several former roommates characterized as a marriage of convenience tied to immigration, an allegation Santos has denied. Since 2020, he has been in a relationship with Matheus Gerard, whom Santos has called his husband and says he wed in November 2021. The couple has lived in Whitestone, Queens, a residence at the center of questions about where Santos actually lived during his campaigns. Santos has no publicly known children.