The publisher remembers the first meeting with the “madman” George Santos

A local newspaper publisher has described meeting George Santos in 2020, saying the future Republican congressman was “really a nut from the start.”

Santos is under pressure to resign after claims he fabricated much of his resume, including his education and work history, and falsely claiming his mother died in the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

On Saturday Grant Lally, editor of the Long Island newspaper The leader of the North Shorewas watching MSNBC to talk about Santos seeking his support in 2020.

He said: “Three years ago in January 2020 he reached out to us through a woman we both knew and wanted to sit down and wanted our support.

“I had actually run for the seat many years before and he was looking for my support so I sat down with him for about an hour and a half. I asked him a lot of questions, a lot of pointed questions, a lot of personal questions, not an unfriendly encounter, but he was a real crackpot from the start.

“He was evasive, he also just basked in the attention he was getting, which I found very odd for a man who was only 31 at the time but claimed to be a multi-millionaire.”

Lally said he thought Santos was lying about parts of his backstory, but the full extent of his deception exceeded our “wildest expectations.”

He explained: “The New York Times did great reporting and did some great research and we felt very vindicated for calling him a phony, we call him a fabulist and he – it exceeded our wildest expectations.

“We didn’t think anyone would lie about going to Baruch College. We didn’t think anyone would lie about working at Goldman Sachs. I knew he wasn’t Jewish by the way because the first time I met him I asked him about his origins and background in Brazil and I don’t think he expected that so he was actually telling the truth.”

news week Santos has reached out for comment.

Santos admitted during an interview with the that he never attended Baruch College or worked for Goldman Sachs or Citigroup New York Post End of December.

He had also claimed to be the “grandson of Holocaust refugees”, despite an investigation by The forward found that the grandparents in question were actually born in Brazil before World War II.

This week Santos denied performing as an amateur drag queen after Brazilian drag queen Eula Rochard told it MSNBC Reporter Marisa Kabas, they had worked with Santos when he was in his 20s and provided photos which they claim identified him.

Earlier this week Politically revealed the existence of a Wikipedia account in the name of Anthony Devolder, a well-known Santos pseudonym, who claimed in 2011 that she began performing as a drag queen when she was 17.

The user also claimed that they have appeared on a number of television shows, including Hannah Montana and The Suite Life of Zack and Cody.

news week could not independently verify that Santos maintained Anthony Devolder’s Wikipedia account.