George Santos’s lies are so big you almost have to admire them | Emma Brockes

The New York congressman's increasingly wild claims have all the thrill-seeking of a man running across a football field naked

In retrospect, as it often seems to go in these cases, the evidence appears to have been so glaringly obvious, it's a wonder we were ever taken in. George Santos - like Anna Sorokin, the fake heiress" - even had the Scooby-Doo, black-rimmed glasses that might have come from a joke shop selling disguises. When the representative for New York's third congressional district entered the House last November, he was briefly notable as the Republican's first openly gay non-incumbent to win a seat.

Now, his fame resides elsewhere. So wild and untrustworthy have statements made by Santos proved to be - Did his granny really survive the Holocaust? Was his mother's death really related to 9/11? Did he ever appear in a movie alongside Uma Thurman? - that it would come as no surprise, at this stage, to discover that rather than a 34-year-old man, Santos is actually four children piled on top of each other beneath a trenchcoat.

Emma Brockes is a Guardian columnist based in New York

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