Why the scandal-plagued Congress member could get expelled from the House this time.
Rep. George Santos (R-NY) walks back to his office after debate on the House floor on a resolution to expel him from Congress, at the US Capitol on November 1, 2023, in Washington, DC. Drew Angerer/Getty Images Li Zhou is a politics reporter at Vox, where she covers Congress and elections. Previously, she was a tech policy reporter at Politico and an editorial fellow at the Atlantic.
This week, scandal-plagued Rep. George Santos (R-NY) will likely face another House expulsion vote. He’s been here before. In May and in early November, the House considered expulsion measures, only to have the respective resolutions defeated. This time, however, could be different: While many members had balked before, momentum is building to make Santos the first House lawmaker in two decades to be expelled.
As Santos put it in an X Spaces event on Friday: “I’ve done the math over and over, and it doesn’t look really good.”
The results of a more than eight-month investigation by the House Ethics Committee set any upcoming vote apart from the earlier two. That report found “substantial evidence” that Santos broke federal law and that he “fraudulently exploit[ed] every aspect of his House candidacy for his own personal financial profit.”
Those findings, which add to myriad reporting about his invented work history, lies about his upbringing and education, and a federal indictment over wire fraud and identity theft, have been enough to change the minds of some of his colleagues.
“I did not vote in the past to expel George because I didn’t believe there was due process,” Colorado Rep. Ken Buck, a Republican who had previously opposed expelling Santos, told MSNBC. “I think he’s been given the fair due process now.”
Santos has called the report’s findings “biased” and a “politicized smear” created by colleagues who want him out of office. He told participants in the X Space that an expulsion vote wouldn’t be about any charges he may face, but that, “I’ll be expelled because people simply did not like me.”
Santo has long maintained that he hasn’t committed any crimes, and pleaded “not guilty” to a 23-count federal indictment in a case that will go to trial next year. He has, however, announced he won’t be running for reelection next year, meaning he has one year left on his term if he’s not expelled.
If he is removed from the House, Santos would be just the sixth House member in history to face this penalty, and he’d be replaced via a special election in his New York district. The expulsion will require two-thirds of the House to vote in favor, or roughly 290 members, for it to pass.
Whether enough of his fellow lawmakers would back an expulsion this time around is still uncertain, though it’s looking much more likely than in past votes. Santos acknowledged this prospect in his Spaces conversation, saying, “I know I’m going to get expelled when this expulsion resolution goes to the floor.”
What the ethics investigation said and how it changed things
The biggest game changer in Santos’s case is the ethics investigation, which was released in mid-November shortly before the Thanksgiving holiday. In it, a bipartisan group of lawmakers concluded that Santos “blatantly stole from his campaign” and that he used campaign funds for personal gain and services including Botox, OnlyFans, and luxury trips.
Additionally, they found he misrepresented the use of these funds to donors and sought to cover up how this money was spent. The lawmakers referred Santos’s case to the Justice Department for any potential penalties, and shortly after the report’s release, House Ethics Chair Michael Guest (R-MS) filed a resolution for Santos’s expulsion.
Prior to its release, a number of House Republicans had said they’d wait until the ethics report came out before they drew definitive conclusions about Santos. These findings were explosive enough that they’ve convinced some of these Republicans to firmly state their support for expulsion. Reps. Greg Murphy (R-NC), Stephanie Bice (R-OK), and Dusty Johnson (R-SD) are among those who’ve changed their positions.
“I purposely waited for the results of the Ethics Committee’s report to come out before passing judgment,” said Murphy in a statement. “However, given its findings of the facts of this case, I find his behavior reprehensible and not worthy of a member of Congress. I will vote to expel him.”
“The amount of fraud and abuse was something that was unprecedented. We’ve never seen that before,” Guest, who had also voted against Santos’s expulsion prior to the report, told SuperTalk Mississippi Radio.
The investigation’s results add to a whole slew of federal charges and scandals that Santos faces, including the 23-count federal indictment that charges him with identity theft, wire fraud, credit card fraud, and money laundering. That indictment accuses him of making charges on donors’ credit cards without their knowledge and fabricating records about loans and contributions his campaign received.
Beyond the federal charges he faces, Santos has also been scrutinized for lying extensively about his past, including claiming that he had attended Baruch College, that he had worked at Goldman Sachs and Citigroup, and that he had Jewish ancestry, all of which have been debunked.
In the past, Republicans have balked at voting to expel Santos not just because the ethics investigation was ongoing but because his district is a competitive one. Santos won the Long Island and Queens district by eight points in 2022, and if he’s expelled it’s possible that Democrats could retake it. The Cook Political Report has his district rated as leaning Democratic in 2024.
There’s also still a chance that Santos somehow clings onto his seat even after all of these developments.
Santos has said he will stand for a House vote on expulsion if one is brought to the floor, but House Speaker Mike Johnson has also alluded to different “options” available for the lawmaker. And although a number of Republicans and Democrats who previously voted against expulsion have now said they would vote in favor of it, it’s not guaranteed that this number will clear the two-thirds required threshold.
That said, prospects for Santos are looking the grimmest for him since he was elected.
Sourse: vox.com
