--- title: What I Learned Investigating George Santos description: Mark Chiusano on his chase to uncover the truth about Congressman George Santos canonical: https://time.com/6340175/george-santos-book/ author: Mark Chiusano article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2023-11-28T12:02:00.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T08:03:30.533Z article:section: Ideas og:title: What I Learned Investigating George Santos og:description: Mark Chiusano on his chase to uncover the truth about Congressman George Santos og:url: https://time.com/6340175/george-santos-book/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1f0a6930a8537f4c/698a42c4096a94a1916ae615/GettyImages-1780221282.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1024 og:image:height: 576 og:image:alt: House Republicans Gather For Their Conference Meeting On Capitol Hill og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: What I Learned Investigating George Santos twitter:description: Mark Chiusano on his chase to uncover the truth about Congressman George Santos twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1f0a6930a8537f4c/698a42c4096a94a1916ae615/GettyImages-1780221282.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # What I Learned Investigating George Santos > Sponsored content. 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It explains how TIME's journalism is made, from the first pitch through the editorial decisions behind a finished story or cover. #### How can I read about how TIME chooses its covers? Inside TIME is the newsletter where TIME's Editor-in-Chief explains cover selection and the editorial reasoning behind major stories. It is free at time.com/newsletters. #### Who is the editor of TIME? Sam Jacobs is TIME's Editor-in-Chief. He writes Inside TIME, a twice-weekly newsletter about the newsroom's reporting and editorial decisions. #### Is Inside TIME free? Yes. Inside TIME is a free newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and available at time.com/subscribe-agent. ## Video: George Santos Pleads Not Guilty to New Fraud Charges in New York [Watch (HLS stream): George Santos Pleads Not Guilty to New Fraud Charges in New York](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/u1nJOiw7.m3u8) (0:57)  _Published 2023-10-27. U.S. Rep. George Santos pleaded not guilty Friday to revised charges accusing him of several frauds, including making tens of thousands of dollars in unauthorized charges on credit cards belonging to some of his campaign donors._ by [Mark Chiusano](https://time.com/author/mark-chiusano/) ## Mark Chiusano Nov 28, 2023 12:02 PM UTC  Rep. George Santos (R-NY) arrives for the weekly House Republican conference meeting in the basement of the U.S. Capitol on November 07, 2023 in Washington, DC. Republican members of Congress are gathering to discuss the possibility of a budget continuing resolution as the November 17 government shutdown deadline looms. Rep. George Santos (R-NY) arrives for the weekly House Republican conference meeting in the basement of the U.S. Capitol on November 07, 2023 in Washington, DC. Republican members of Congress are gathering to discuss the possibility of a budget continuing resolution as the November 17 government shutdown deadline looms. Chip Somodevilla-Getty Images by [Mark Chiusano](https://time.com/author/mark-chiusano/) ## Mark Chiusano Nov 28, 2023 12:02 PM UTC I first heard the name [George Santos](https://time.com/6336786/george-santos-expulsion-botox/) in 2019 when my editor assigned me a routine writeup about a new congressional candidate. At the time, I was doing one and often more pieces a day for Newsday’s newsletter about New York politics, and I was glad to have what seemed like a quick hit. Santos got on the phone immediately. But it was a strange call. He claimed he was launching his campaign as we spoke, but also that he was currently in Florida for a work conference. He seemed vague on some policies, but he spoke defiantly about his personal story–a first-generation American (his phrase) and work in private equity for his whole career (which I eventually learned was wrong). I wrote the little piece and he shared it on Facebook and in one parallel universe, this could have been the last I heard or wrote about the Queens newcomer. But Santos’s strange doings created plenty of fodder for me in the following months. Like not being clear about whether he lived in the district, or raising money for a “recount” campaign committee for a race he’d definitely lost. He had some wild statements about abortion. Still, not many people were paying much attention to him. So even after negative pieces, he’d pick up the phone. Eventually, though, he started hiding. By his second campaign in 2022 (“second time’s the charm,” he accurately told me), he skipped an endorsement interview, and once hustled away when he saw me in the men’s room before a Newsday debate. (The editorial board endorsed his opponent.) After he won, the New York Times published their [blockbuster story](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/19/nyregion/george-santos-ny-republicans.html) that connected the dots for many of his lies and strangenesses. But now I just had further questions about this guy who’d been kicking around the back of my mind for years. Clearly he _had_ lied about almost everything, but why? So began my effort to get inside George Santos’s head. He made it very clear from the outset that he would not be “lending” his voice (his phrase) to my book, [_The Fabulist_](https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Fabulist/Mark-Chiusano/9781668043677), and that neither he nor anyone from his staff were interested in talking. Fine by me. I found plenty of people who were happy to chat, including over 100 individuals who knew him, from friends and family to former teachers and dates. I spoke to people he scammed and people who just remembered him as a pretty fun guy. I learned about his jokes and his routines, and how expensive a wine bottle he’d order ($200, one person said). These helped fill out his profile even without a personal interview—and even if he had chatted, how would I have trusted him not to lie? I traveled to different places in search of him. I understood that Brazil had been a key beacon in his late adolescence–maybe a shining moment, even, of real happiness–and so I spent weeks there to learn more about his teenage years and experimentations with drag and romance. This is how I ended up in a “sauna” where sex could be purchased for $8, to watch Santos’s drag mentor perform the kind of show that Santos once watched and emulated. Santos has downplayed his drag history and there are only a few photos and brief videos, so watching Santos’s mentor in person was the only way to see the origin of Santos’s routine in full. ### More From TIME I listened to every podcast I could find where he did in fact lend some words. I read multiple books by KrisAnne Hall,a firebrand political author he said he admired, and gathered photographs and video of Santos from well before he got famous. I walked places where he had walked, including the now-shuttered College Point cube where he worked as a young man in a dreary call center, a place where the sound of airplanes lifting off from LaGuardia might have reminded him of all the places he wanted to fly but was not. I watched him in federal court, as in October when he donned bright red shoes and a funereal dark jacket, saying nothing to reporters but blowing a kiss by the courthouse steps. The chase could get alternately very solemn or surreal, and I could feel both far from him and very close, as when someone sent me a picture of his literal passport, as well as half-naked snapshots of him in a bath. I also knocked on a lot of doors in New York, and he was not thrilled with that: “We have video proof of you trespassing inside various buildings where my family members reside and leaving notes under their doors,” was the way he described my standard shoe-leather reporting. I did leave a lot of notes and knocked on lots of unopened doors, but you never know what can happen when you exercise your knuckles. Once, in an apartment unit that was associated with Santos’s dad, I spoke to a Greek man who was not Gercino dos Santos but who nevertheless was so thrilled about his connection with the whole Santos story that he banged on a few other portals and got some neighbors out on the landing to marvel the afternoon away. Sometimes, you also find someone you’ve been looking for. My search for the real Santos included knocking and calling until the absolute last moment. On the day I was last supposed to submit the manuscript I successfully caught a friend of Santos’s at home in Queens because there was a story I wanted to factcheck. Factchecking, by the way, was also something Santos refused to do. “This is your journey,” he texted me in response to a request on that front. “Now own up your short coming \[sic\] and know I will challenge any and all thing \[sic\] inaccurate in your book.” The chase continued even after the book was done. Chatting with a Nassau GOP functionary recently, for example, I was told a delightful story about Santos “bidding” on a bowtie in an impromptu political raffle. This was during a GOP leaders meeting back in the fall of 2022\. Santos went away with the bowtie, but supposedly the party never saw a check. Never change, George. ## Transcript Hey, hey, I got to go. Hey, hey, and I've seen the late night talk show host joke about him in there monologues, and I occasionally laughed if they're particularly good jokes, but I'd really like to stress that turning his lying and his hero indecent lack of Integrity his criminality into a punchline really trivializes the wrong thing done to the people in his district. I'm one of them. I'm from Plainview. It's not actually funny to have Santos pretending to represent us Republican leadership is essentially playing a game of keep-away with that congressional seat, pretending to let the process workout. 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