George Santos Says “Freaking War” in Ukraine Is Preventing Him From Obtaining Proof His Grandparents Fled the Holocaust

Of the approximately one zillion lies that have come out of Representative George Santos’s mouth, one of the biggest and most offensive is the lie about his maternal grandparents being Ukrainian Jews who were forced to flee Europe during the Holocaust. In 2021, the then congressional candidate claimed in a campaign video that his “grandparents survived the Holocaust.” Several months later, he told the Jewish News Syndicate: “I’m very proud of my grandparents’ story,” which he claimed involved “fleeing Hitler.” In seeming anticipation of getting called out for this specific lie, he told Fox News Digital last February: “For a lot of people who are descendants of World War II refugees or survivors of the Holocaust, a lot of names and paperwork were changed in name of survival.”

But, of course, like so many lies he was later caught telling—from being a star volleyball player, to having employees who died in the Pulse nightclub shooting, to his mother being in the South Tower on 9/11—these claims about his grandparents and the Holocaust do not actually appear to be true. Multiple genealogy records indicate his grandparents were born in Brazil and, according to one genealogist who spoke to CNN, “There’s no sign of Jewish and/or Ukrainian heritage and no indication of name changes along the way.”

Asked about what many would consider an appalling lie during an interview with CNN that aired on Sunday, the congressman from New York not only doubled down on it, but insisted that he is close to obtaining proof—which he’d have already if not for that pesky war in Ukraine. “That’s what I spent the last 10 months doing, putting together,” Santos told reporter Manu Raju of the alleged evidence showing his grandparents really did flee the Holocaust. “But unfortunately, Ukraine is in the middle of a freaking war, and my grandfather comes from Ukraine. So this is the biggest lift that I have to do my entire life. But that’s something I’m going to prove before I die.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Santos claimed that he has “always made very clear” that he comes “from a Jewish” family but is personally Catholic, which—it may or may not surprise you to hear—is also not true. On the campaign trail he described himself as a “proud American Jew.” (And then later told the New York Post he only said he was “Jew-ish.”)

Last month, Santos pleaded not guilty to 23 criminal counts, including conspiracy, identity theft, and credit card fraud. Several weeks before that, he claimed to New York Times reporter Grace Ashford that his niece had been kidnapped, likely in retaliation for his public comments about the Chinese Communist Party. A high-ranking member of law enforcement subsequently told Ashford that the matter had been looked into—and that there was no evidence of any kidnapping, period, or, really, any connection to the Chinese Communist Party. “We found nothing at all to suggest it’s true,” the official said. “I’d lean into, ‘he made it up.’”