In a lively debate, George Santos dares to accommodate colleagues to oust him

When the House of Representatives opened the floor Thursday to debate the fate of New York Republican George Santos, arguments over whether to expel him took an immediate and indecent turn.

Mr. Santos’s use of Botox was argued several times, even by those who defended him. His opponents pointed to falsified links to the Holocaust and to his claims, contradicted by paperwork, that his mother was at the World Trade Center on September 11. The last speaker who called for Mr. Santos’ expulsion concluded with the briefest of remarks: “You, sir, are a fraud.”

The dramatic floor debate was perhaps a fitting culmination of a political career marked by spectacle, scandals and lies.

All could end on Friday, when the House of Representatives will vote on a resolution to expel the 35-year-old Santos, following the release of a scathing and detailed report from the House Ethics Committee, which found “substantial evidence ” he was found to have violated federal law.

Mr. Santos offered minimal defense and again declined to provide evidence that would counter the litany of misdeeds and 23 criminal charges that Republicans and Democrats cited in support of his removal.

Instead, as a group of lawmakers repeatedly cited the ethics report’s findings, Mr. Santos and his defenders argued that removing him before his criminal case is resolved could open the floodgates to a series of frivolous deportation attempts that would undermine the will of would destroy the voters.

“The deportation of George Santos would set a new precedent,” said Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, adding: “The problem is that it sets a lower standard of due process without merit.”

But Santos’ critics, most of whom were members of his own party, argued that the congressman had been given ample opportunity to defend himself, including during the months when the Ethics Commission was investigating him. The report was convincing, they said.

“I ask my colleagues: if we don’t take the Ethics Committee and their results seriously, why does this committee exist at all?” Representative Anthony D’Esposito of New York said.

Friday’s vote on Mr. Santos’ fate will mark the third time the House has confronted the issue this year.

Whether the outcome will be different this time remains unclear. Expelling a representative requires a two-thirds majority, a threshold not met in previous attempts. But since the ethics report was released, a number of lawmakers who had previously opposed expulsion have publicly changed their minds.

Mr Santos himself has said he expected to be removed from office, a position he reiterated on Thursday. But despite insisting he would be “at peace” with any decision to expel him, he has refused to resign, a characteristic defiance that set the tone for Thursday’s circus-like debate.

Complicating the landscape for Republicans is the position of Speaker Mike Johnson, who has expressed reservations about expelling Mr. Santos but refrained from making a formal effort to protect him.

The infighting among Republicans was on full display during the debate, at one point devolving into shouting matches when Representative Max Miller of Ohio used his few seconds of time to address Mr. Santos directly and call him a fraud .

Mr. Santos fired back by citing allegations of physical abuse that Mr. Miller has denied, saying that Mr. Miller was “accused of being a wife beater.”

The lawmakers who supported Mr. Santos’ expulsion largely used their time to repeat the numerous accusations against him. Rep. Michael Lawler, a Republican who represents the lower Hudson Valley, chose to recall Santos’ false claims about associations with September 11 and the Holocaust, slamming his colleague for “using tragic events in history to protect himself” to public office’.

In an unusual twist, Republican Ethics Committee Chairman Michael Guest of Mississippi spoke in his personal capacity to deliver an impassioned defense of the committee’s report.

Armed with large posters printed with some of the report’s findings, Mr. Guest noted that Mr. Santos had previously said he was “looking forward to seeing the ethics process take place.”

Mr. Guest, who introduced the current resolution to deport Mr. Santos, said the trial was concluded after months of investigation and concluded with a plea. “All members vote in favor of expelling Representative Santos.”

Mr. Santos spent much of his time criticizing the commission. He accused it of rushing to depose him without giving him due process, and alleged that the bipartisan Ethics Commission began its work with a predetermined outcome.

“I’m not trying to be arrogant or spiteful or, you know, disrespectful to the committee,” Mr. Santos said. “But I’m curious: what is the schedule of the Ethics Committee? Why do this in haste?”

Many of the Republicans who rose to support Santos during Thursday’s debate also called the decision to expel him an important precedent issue.

Only five members of the House of Representatives have ever been impeached. Three of them were expelled for supporting the Confederacy during the Civil War. Two others, one in 1980 and one in 2002, were removed from office after criminal convictions.

Representative Clay Higgins, Republican of Louisiana, said expelling Mr. Santos would override the will of the voters.

“Should the American people believe that the opinions of members of Congress are a higher standard than the purposeful voice of the American people?” asked Mr. Higgins, who voted to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

He added that the push from lawmakers to deport Mr. Santos was “like witnessing an otherwise honest and compassionate village meeting to celebrate the burning of an alleged witch.”

Still, some Republicans who opposed Mr. Santos’ expulsion made clear that they did not support his behavior.

While speaking on behalf of Mr. Santos, Mr. Gaetz raised some of the salacious claims in the ethics report: that Mr. Santos used campaign funds to pay for Botox and purchases on OnlyFans, a website known for its explicit content.

At the beginning of his speech, he also tried to distance himself from his colleague. “I rise not to defend George Santos, whoever he is,” Mr. Gaetz said, drawing chuckles from those in the House chamber.

Mr. Santos’ behavior on Thursday was in many ways a summary of his 11 months on the Hill. He vacillated between appearing calm and defiant, occasionally joking, but rarely sounding contrite.

Early in the day, he held a press conference in which he blasted his colleagues and argued that the expulsion vote was “theatre for the American people, at the expense of the American people.”

Later, away from the cameras, he told a group of reporters that he was “strangely calm” and had started thinking about his future. He planned to write a book, he said, and hadn’t ruled out one day appearing on a television show like “Dancing With the Stars.”

At the end of the debate, he appeared to acknowledge that his comments would have little impact on the outcome of Friday’s vote.

“If tomorrow, when this vote takes place, it is in the conscience of all my colleagues that they believe this is the right thing to do, then so be it. Take the vote,” Mr. Santos said. “I’m at peace with it.”

Reporting was contributed by Lucas Broadwater And Annie Karni from Washington, and Nicholas Fandos From New York.