Embattled Republican Rep. George Santos, who last week survived a vote to expel him from the House, appeared on CNN’s “Inside Politics” on Sunday where he denied the DOJ’s charges against him and insisted that his claims of Jewish heritage are true, the New York Post reported.
Santos told CNN’s Manu Raju that he has been working with a genealogist and has spent the last ten months having his DNA evaluated and would “prove before I die” that his grandparents were Jews who fled the Holocaust.
The scandal-plagued congressman said he hasn’t yet acquired the documents to prove his heritage, blaming the delay on the war in Ukraine which he said is where his grandfather was from.
To prove that his family fled the Holocaust for Brazil, Santos said he is trying to get “the last pieces of it,” primarily where his family went in Brazil to get forged documents. He insisted that once he has everything put together, the company working on the documentation will “submit the report to the press with glee.”
Santos told Raju that he never claimed to be Jewish, saying that he is a Catholic who comes from a Jewish family.
When asked what the past year has been like for him, Santos described 2023 as “hell in the most profound way,” but said he did not regret his decision to run for Congress.
When discussing his indictment, Santos maintained his innocence
Asked if he would consider a plea deal, Santos told Raju that there had been no discussions about it.
He insisted that as a candidate, he was not the one to handle the money, and argued that he never personally submitted any financial reports or “even looked at a single report.”
When asked about alleged emails and text messages prosecutors claim show Santos’ involvement, the congressman said he would “love to see them,” noting that it is “easy to take things out of context.”
