December 4, 2023
The House voted on Friday, December 1, to expel Representative George Santos (R-New York) from Congress—an embarrassing end to his brief legislative career that was built on lies from the start, reports HuffPost.
The final vote was 311 to 114. You can read the expulsion resolution here.
Their action comes after a House Ethics Committee investigation found last month that Santos spent thousands of dollars in campaign funds on personal services and products—such as Botox treatments, Hermès designer products, and access to a website used primarily by sex workers.
The Republican chairman of the committee sponsored the resolution to throw Santos out of Congress right after the panel released its report.
There have only been 20 people expelled from Congress in its entire history; and most were in the Senate and kicked out in the 1860s for supporting the Confederacy. The last time a federal lawmaker was expelled was in 2002, when then-Rep. Jim Traficant (D-Ohio) was convicted of bribery and racketeering.
Santos is the sixth House member to be expelled, and the first Republican House member. His expulsion may be the least of his woes. He’s facing a 23-count federal indictment that alleges conspiracy, cheating to get unemployment benefits, credit card fraud and other crimes.
Santos has also been accused of lying about his résumé so many times that it’s hard to keep up. He’s misled people about his name, his Jewish heritage; being a descendent of Holocaust survivors from Ukraine; his mother being in the Twin Towers during the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks; and his mother being the first female executive at a major financial institution. Immigration documents show that his mother worked as a housekeeper.
The New York Republican has consistently denied he’s done anything wrong. Last month, he dismissed the House Ethics Committee’s probe into his finances, calling it “a dirty biased act and one that tramples all over my rights.”
In the wake of that report, though, he did announce he wouldn’t run for reelection.
Research contact: @HuffPost
