Hanging over the entire saga of George Santos, the congressman from New York who made up virtually all the things, is his mom, Fatima Devolder. One one who helped on a Santos political marketing campaign remembers his voice getting shaky each time he’d convey up his mom, even lengthy after her 2016 dying from most cancers.
The 2 have been very shut, and relations bear in mind her spoiling him as a baby. “She was at all times making up excuses for what he did,” one relative stated. Theirs was a boisterous dwelling, a Queens basement condominium that typically hosted rats, but in addition happiness. Holidays have been a giant deal, that includes fried meals from Fatima’s native Brazil. The TV performed consistently, a really American situation. Whereas Santos’s father Gercino was usually the first breadwinner, working as a home and constructing painter to help the household, Fatima cared for Santos and cleaned homes. She and Santos and Santos’s sister Tiffany have been a good unit, earlier than and after Fatima’s relationship with Gercino ended. She was dedicated to her offspring, posting on Fb in Portuguese not lengthy earlier than she died, “I really like my kids, they’re my all the things ♥♥♥♥♥.”
There have been additionally moments all through Santos’s life when his mom would depart him for a spell in a single place or one other. He would stick with a relative whereas she went to Brazil. One time, when he was grown and she or he returned to New York, Fatima’s roommate remembered Santos steadily checking in on his mom, although he lived far away. It appeared that Santos missed her.
At varied factors, they cohabitated, even when he was an grownup. It may typically be tense. One other roommate remembers them preventing about all the things you may think about—cigarettes, cash—and typically, Fatima would retreat to her bed room and simply cry. Santos would say horrible issues to her, inform her to go away the home—“his” home, he’d say. This too would turn out to be a trait of his; he’d flip a swap, and threaten the closest of mates or kin.
However there was usually one thing pushing him again to his mom.
Santos’s sister, Tiffany, as soon as left a “evaluate” on his political Fb web page calling him a “son who devoted his life to offer our mom probably the most comfy life when she was loosing [sic] her combat to most cancers.” Santos’s take care of Fatima is even stenciled into Queens public data. On Christmas Eve 2015, Santos appeared in housing courtroom for failing to pay $2,250 in hire, and the whole audio recording of the continuing reveals him saying matter-of-factly that his mom was staying with him, “for well being points.”
He talks not solely about his deep emotions for his mom, but in addition his nice delight in her life. Santos has referred to as Fatima “the primary feminine government at a serious monetary establishment.” He cites her prominence in native Republican politics, calling her “lively with the social gathering as a donor for over 20 years.” He fondly remembers her leaving her “9 to 5” to canvass for Rudy Giuliani, and bringing younger Santos alongside. And he has clucked about her escape from the South Tower on 9⁄11, the best way she bought caught up within the “ash cloud.” There may be good motive to imagine that none of that is true.
Metropolis, state, and federal marketing campaign finance databases present no proof of political donations. She doesn’t seem to have been a registered voter in New York, and her immigration data betray no signal that she was even a US citizen, although she labored for years to legalize her standing and at one level had a inexperienced card. The 9⁄11 story can also be questionable at finest: In her personal immigration paperwork, she claimed she was not in america that 12 months. One entry from June 2001—simply earlier than the assaults—lists her present tackle as Niterói, Brazil. Santos continues to insist his mom was at Floor Zero, and maybe she reentered or remained within the nation in a approach not mirrored within the paperwork. Immigrants and employers typically inform tall tales on their purposes about dates, particulars, and places. However the son’s full declare about his mom’s 9⁄11 expertise has additional holes, together with the marketing campaign bio through which he says in successive sentences that Fatima was a monetary government and that she was “in her workplace within the South Tower” on the tragic day. Individuals who knew her bear in mind nothing about Wall Road jobs or Wall Road wealth.
