JustTheNews: Well before Rep.-elect George Santos (R-N.Y.) admitted to fabricating key details of his biography, lying about one’s past was a rich political exercise. President Joe Biden got caught boasting about bogus academic credentials, Hillary Clinton made up a sniper attack in Bosnia, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren had to apologize for claiming Native American heritage.
Santos made headlines this week for admitting to the New York Post and WABC radio that he lied on the campaign trail about his education and work experience – specifically about where he attended college and his alleged employment history with high-profile Wall Street firms.
“My sins here are embellishing my resume. I’m sorry,” Santos said Monday, confessing he never graduated from any college and “never worked directly” for Goldman Sachs and Citigroup. Santos chalked up his misleading claims to a “poor choice of words.”
Santos, the first openly gay non-incumbent Republican elected to the House, has also been accused of lying about his family history and sexual orientation, although he’s defended some of those claims from criticism.
Santos has received widespread backlash for his fibs, and a Long Island prosecutor said she intends to investigate whether the soon-to-be-congressman committed any crimes. However, he’s hardly alone in padding his resume for political gain.
Here are eight prominent political figures who have done the same:
Joe Biden
Biden is no stranger to embellishing his past accomplishments, stretching the truth if not outright lying on several occasions.
In 1987, for example, then-Sen. Biden claimed in a video filmed by C-SPAN that he ”went to law school on a full academic scholarship – the only one in my class to have a full academic scholarship.” Biden also said that he ”ended up in the top half” of his class and won a prize in an international moot court competition. In college, Biden added, he was ”the outstanding student in the political science department” and ”graduated with three degrees from college.” MORE
If that’s what it takes to get a Republican elected these days…
Do as the demoncrats!
Yep, and George W Bush said that Iraq had nucular WMD’s.
There is no such thing as nucular…LIAR!
There is a fine line between lying and embellishing… and lying with style I guess… I think we all know that politicians embellish… they’re fundamentally salesmen after all, but then there is a class of low down, bottom of the barrel, morally bankrupt scoundrels with no standards, scruples or shame that will say and do anything and there we find the Bidens and Clintons of the world. Santos has a history of deceit that “begging for forgiveness” is not going to change.
I’m hoping he is like the demoncrats in one more way; vote party no matter what!
How does Connecticut Senator Da Nang Dick Blumenthal always miss the cut in these lying liar discussions? He did not serve in Viet Nam.
I might have missed it.
OK I clicked the link. Blumenthal is in there.
My apologies.
The heck w/lying about the past. Can we have investigations and toss the politicians out when they lie about the future? Like when they promise they’re going to represent our interests and govern according to the platform they ran on and they NEVER DO.
Kinda silly to complain about lying about work history. The government makes ex-employers lie about ex-employees all the time. If you’re a boss and you fire someone for stealing, if a person calls asking about them, you can only agree that they worked for you and you better hold your tongue when asked if you would take them back. Under obama they got it passed that you can’t ask about criminal background
We can’t prove all the lies Barry told about his past, because the records were sealed, never to see the light of day.
Yea and how come even though we know they lied not one has paid a price for it? He’ll Joey B. claims 81 million votes and all the rest and he’s STILL an illegitimate president no one has tossed out.