The George Santos Expulsion Debate: House to debate whether George Santos should be removed from office
The House of Representatives will begin a revived debate Thursday on whether Rep. George Santos of New York should be expelled, paving the way for a vote that appears somewhat tilted against him.
The vote, expected Friday, will mark the third time this year that the House has considered the fate of Mr. Santos, a serial fabulist who entered Congress overshadowed by scandal and has since been indicted on 23 federal crimes.
It is unclear whether Santos, 35, will be deported, although he has said in recent days that he expected the vote to pass. Doing so would require a two-thirds supermajority, necessitating significant bipartisan consensus in a chamber almost evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans.
But House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican, said Wednesday that there was significant debate within his party about how to proceed, adding that he was among those concerned about the precedent that would could be created by deporting Mr. Santos while his criminal case remained unresolved.
Santos held a press conference Thursday morning in which he warned that such a precedent would “haunt” lawmakers in the future. He called the expulsion vote “theatre for the American people at the expense of the American people.”
The latest deportation attempt comes in the wake of a House Ethics Committee report released two weeks ago that found significant evidence that Mr. Santos had violated federal law. Investigators accused him of using his campaign funds for personal expenses, including hotel stays, spa treatments such as Botox, luxury goods and purchases on OnlyFans.
The committee’s Republican chairman filed a motion to expel Mr. Santos, and some lawmakers who opposed previous efforts to oust him said the committee’s report had caused them to change their minds.
Mr Santos said on Thursday that the commission’s report was “littered with exaggerations”, but declined to comment again on the specific findings. “There will come a time when I unpack it completely and go line by line,” he said.
Only five lawmakers have been removed from the House of Representatives in its history: three for supporting the Confederacy during the Civil War and two after criminal convictions.