Rep. George Santos to face federal criminal charges 

New York Representative George Santos, who has been under scrutiny for fabricating his resume, was charged on Tuesday with federal criminal offenses, according to sources familiar with the matter. 

Details of the charges have not yet been disclosed because the case is unsealed. However, Santos was being investigated for fabricating parts of his education, work experience, and family history by the FBI and the Justice Department. 

Santos is expected to appear at a federal court in New York’s eastern district, where the charges were filed, as soon as Wednesday, one of the sources told CNN. 

“This is news to me.,” Santos said on Tuesday. “You’re the first to call me about this,” 

Santos, 34, was elected as a Republican member of Congress in the 2022 midterm elections to represent a small fraction of Queens and parts of Long Island. However, Santos’ resume and life story were called into question after the New York Times reported major discrepancies in several aspects of his career. 

Santos has been found to have lied about his education, work experience, and religion—some of which he has admitted to have “embellished.” 

During his campaign, Santos portrayed himself as growing up in a working-class, immigrant family in Queens and getting a high school equivalency diploma. However, the colleges where he allegedly obtained his degrees did not have any records that he had attended, including Baruch College and New York University. Similarly, several companies where he allegedly worked have no record of him as an employee, including Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, and Metglobal.

Additionally, he claimed that his grandparents “survived the Holocaust” as Ukrainian Jewish refugees, that his mother died on 9/1,1, and he was a Broadway producer, among other discovered exaggerations to his life story. 

There are also questions regarding how he raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for his campaign and irregular payments, and whether he founded a phony animal charity from which he allegedly stole funds.

Despite many calls for his resignation and an investigation by the House Ethics Committee, Santos said he plans to end his current term and even announced that he was running for reelection.