George Santos ran for Congress with an impressive résumé—college volleyball star, degrees from Baruch College and New York University, and a Goldman Sachs alum.
Of course, none of that was true. Over the past year, Santos’ resume has unspooled to reveal a thread of lies. And on Friday, Congress drew a thick black line over perhaps the last true bullet point on Santos’ résumé: sitting U.S. congressman.
By a vote of 311-114, the House voted to expel Santos, with 206 Democrats and 105 Republicans voting for expulsion, and two Democrats and 112 Republicans voting against it. This was just the sixth time in U.S. history that the House has expelled one of its own and the first time the House has done so without a criminal conviction, though Santos doesn’t dispute that he lied about most of his résumé. (He does, however, dispute that he broke the law, despite the 23 criminal counts against him and substantial evidence in his indictment—as well as an Ethics report released two weeks ago—that detailed a number of alleged legal violations.)
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As members voted on Santos’ removal, the serial fabulist was in and out of the chamber, at one point leaving, and then reappearing with his coat draped over his shoulders to watch the final tally and shake hands with certain members.
In characteristically dramatic fashion, Santos left the chamber before the vote had closed, when he had about 300 votes against him ensuring his removal. After Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) banged the gavel closing the vote, the chamber fell uncharacteristically silent, as members seemed stunned that they had actually expelled Santos, even though the outcome was largely expected.
Throughout this process, Santos has cast himself as a martyr, deprived of due process. That has been a point the New York Republican has hammered in recent weeks—that Congress was acting as “judge, jury, and executioner,” and that lawmakers were setting a dangerous precedent where they would have to adjudicate who should be in Congress and who shouldn’t, rather than just leaving such questions up to whether someone was convicted.
But any lawmaker who chose to look into the federal charges against Santos—among them, conspiracy, fraud, aggravated identity theft, and unauthorized political contributions—could see that Santos is unlikely to evade conviction. At one point in the indictment, investigators lay out how Santos appears to have stolen credit card information from a donor to pay himself. In the House Ethics report, lawmakers show that Santos falsified loans, backfilled some of the money later, and also took from his own campaign account—to buy clothes, botox, and OnlyFans subscriptions.
And as much as Santos wanted lawmakers to wait, it’s been clear even before Santos was sworn in that he’s a serial liar who made up most of the biography that helped propel him to Congress.
While the Ethics Committee did not make a recommendation about expelling Santos, the chairman of the panel said that was to expedite the removal of Santos. And if the committee’s recommendation wasn’t already clear, the chairman—Michael Guest (R-MS)—offered one of the resolutions to expel Santos.
Soon after the Ethics report was released, it was clear Santos couldn’t survive. In recent days, Santos himself has acknowledged that he was likely to be expelled. But instead of resigning like many members before him, Santos has insisted on a vote. (While only five House members and 15 senators had ever been expelled in Congress before Friday, dozens more have resigned before an expulsion vote could take place.)
In the days leading up to Santos’ expulsion vote, Speaker Mike Johnson reportedly leaned on Santos to resign to spare his colleagues from a tough vote.
But a defiant Santos refused to go quietly. At a press conference on the Capitol steps Thursday morning, he called the Ethics Committee report “slanderous” and declared his intentions to introduce an expulsion resolution against Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY), who has pleaded guilty to falsely pulling a fire alarm.
Rep. George Santos (R-NY) holds a press conference to address efforts to expel him from the House of Representatives
Elizabeth Frantz/ReutersAt one particularly ridiculous moment at the press conference, Santos fielded a question about whether his Ferragamo loafers were purchased with campaign dollars. If he is to be believed, supposedly they were not and the shoes are six years old.
“It’s all theater,” Santos’ said of his expulsion. “It’s theater for the cameras. It’s theater for the microphones. It’s theater for the American people at the expense of the American people because no real work gets done.”
After it became apparent that Santos would not resign, Johnson gave his conference his blessing to “vote their conscience” on the expulsion.
Still, some Republicans took up the cause of their embattled colleague.
“It’s like witnessing the otherwise fair and compassionate village gathered to celebrate the burning of an alleged witch,” said conservative Rep. Clay Higgins (R-LA).
Other members—rallied by new New York Republicans seeking to distance themselves from the Santos Show—have been steadfast proponents of giving Santos the boot.
“He has defamed not only his office but the institution itself,” said Marc Molinaro (R-NY). “I was not elected, nor any of us to defend precedent. I was elected to defend the U.S. Constitution.”
And ahead of the vote, Rep. Max Miller (R-OH)—who had a testy exchange on the floor with Santos on Thursday—claimed that he was one of the victims of Santos’ alleged fraud. In an email to all of his GOP colleagues, Miller said the Santos campaign charged his personal credit card, as well as his mother’s credit card, for contributions exceeding FEC limits.
“I’ve seen a list of roughly 400 other people to whom the Santos campaign allegedly did this. I believe some other members of this conference might have had the same experience,” Miller wrote.
Santos’ expulsion tees up a critical and competitive race on Long Island. Democrats have been salivating over flipping the seat all year.
Former Rep. Tom Souzzi (D-NY) is the Democrats’ heir apparent. He vacated the Long Island seat last cycle to run for governor against Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul. Souzzi lost and wants his old seat back.
But New York politicos told The Daily Beast that if they put up a solid candidate, Republicans won’t make a Democratic win easy. Santos won the seat amid a slew of Republican pick-ups on Long Island.
“It is a flippable seat,” said New York strategist Mike Dawidziak. But the Democrats, he said, “have certainly had their challenges laid out for them.”
