Washington — The House will try again this week to expel embattled GOP Rep. George Santos after Democratic Rep. Robert Garcia moved Tuesday to force a vote on ousting him this week.
The California lawmaker introduced a “privileged” resolution to expel the New York Republican after a damning report from the House Ethics Committee earlier this month said there was “substantial evidence” that Santos repeatedly broke the law. Introducing it as privileged means the House is required to vote on it within two days.
The report alleged Santos stole money from his congressional campaign to pay for his personal expenses, reported fake loans, deceived donors and engaged in fraudulent business dealings. Noting the depth of his embellishments about his education, career and family, investigators said Santos’ campaign staff encouraged him to seek treatment for his constant lying.
“If they want to send me home, if they think this was a fair process, if they think this is how it should be done and if they’re confidant that this is a constitutional way of doing it, God bless their hearts,” Santos told reporters Tuesday.
Santos, who has criticized the report’s findings as “slanderous,” said last Friday that he expects to be expelled from Congress.
“I have done the math over and over, and it doesn’t look really good,” he said during an audio broadcast on X.
The Constitution requires two-thirds majority of House lawmakers to oust a member.
Santos is also facing 23 federal charges, to which he has pleaded not guilty. In May, a 13-count indictment alleged Santos participated in a fraudulent political contribution scheme, fraudulently collected unemployment benefits and filed false financial disclosures with the House. A superseding indictment in October added 10 more charges, alleging he used donors’ credit cards without authorization and falsified his campaign finance reports.
Santos has already survived two attempts to remove him this year, with the most recent falling far short of the two-thirds majority needed. The effort was led by a group of New York Republicans after more charges were brought against Santos in October. The first effort to expel him in May, led by Democrats, was blocked by Republicans and referred to the Ethics Committee for further investigation.
But the release of the Ethics Committee report gave momentum to a third attempt, with lawmakers who previously voted against expelling Santos announcing they would now support it.
Before the Thanksgiving break, Rep. Michael Guest, the chairman of the Ethics Committee, introduced a resolution to expel Santos, but did not bring it up as privileged.
The freshman lawmaker has been defiant in rejecting his colleagues’ repeated calls for him to resign. Santos has said resigning would mean he’s admitting to the allegations in the Ethics Committee’s report.
“I resign, I admit everything that’s in that report, which most of it is some of the craziest s**t I’ve ever read in my life,” he said Friday.
