The US House of Representatives on Friday voted to expel US Representative George Santos of New York after a blistering ethics report on his conduct heightened lawmakers’ concerns about the scandal-plagued freshman, who became just the sixth member in the chamber’s history to be ousted by colleagues, and the third since the Civil War.
The vote to expel was 311-114, easily clearing the two-thirds majority required. House Republican leaders opposed removing Santos, whose departure leaves them with a razor-thin majority, but in the end 105 Republican lawmakers sided with nearly all Democrats to expel him.
The expulsion marked the final congressional chapter in a spectacular fall from grace for Santos. Celebrated as an up-and-comer after he flipped a district from Democrats last year, Santos’ life story began to unravel before he was even sworn into office. Reports emerged that he had lied about having Jewish ancestry, a career at top Wall Street firms and a college degree, among other things.
Photo: AFP
In May, Santos was indicted by federal prosecutors on multiple charges, turning his presence in the House into a growing distraction and embarrassment to the party.
Santos joins a short list of lawmakers expelled from the House, and for reasons uniquely his own. Of the previous expulsions in the House, three were for siding with the Confederacy during the Civil War. The remaining two occurred after the lawmakers were convicted of crimes in federal court, the most recent in 2002.
Seeking to remain in office, Santos had appealed to colleagues to let the court process play out. He warned of the precedent they would set by expelling a member not yet convicted of a crime.
“This will haunt them in the future,” Santos told lawmakers on Thursday evening as they debated his removal.
His fellow Republicans from New York were front and center in the effort to boot him, seeking to generate as much political distance as they could from Santos, whose lies about his past made him a pariah in the House before he even took the oath of office.
“Every precedent under the sun has been broken by George Santos,” US Representative Nick Langworthy said. “Has there ever been anyone here that’s made up a whole life?”
Santos had survived two previous expulsion attempts, but a scathing House Ethics Committee report released the week before the Thanksgiving holiday appeared to turn colleagues decisively against him.
After eight months of work, Ethics Committee investigators said they had found “overwhelming evidence” that Santos had broken the law and exploited his public position for his own profit.
Santos’ troubles are far from over, as he faces a trial next year in New York. Federal prosecutors in a 23-count indictment have accused him of duping donors, stealing from his campaign and lying to the US Congress.
The indictment alleges specifically that Santos stole the identities of campaign donors and then used their credit cards to make tens of thousands of dollars in unauthorized charges.
He then wired some of the money to his personal bank account and used the rest to pad his campaign coffers, prosecutors say. Santos has pleaded not guilty,
Santos’ expulsion narrows the Republican Party’s majority to 221-213 and Democrats would have a good opportunity to fill the vacancy in a special election for the seat.
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