Rep. George Santos, facing likely expulsion from Congress, launched an expletive-ridden tirade in a livestream Friday night, accusing his House colleagues of casting votes hungover, cheating on their spouses, and being “hypocrites.”
The three-hour-long rant came after House Ethics Committee Chairman Michael Guest introduced a resolution to expel Santos that many of his former allies have promised to support.
Guest introduced the resolution following the committee’s monthslong investigation into the congressman, which found he used campaign funds to pay for Botox, personal travel, and even pornography.
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Santos singled out Guest in the livestream, saying the chairman should “be a man and stop being a pussy and call the damn motion.” But he had harsh words for all of his colleagues, on both sides of the aisle, whom he accused of “act[ing] like they’re in ivory towers with white pointy hats and they’re untouchable.”
“Within the ranks of United States Congress there’s felons galore, there’s people with all sorts of shystie backgrounds,” he said.
The embittered Republican added that some of his colleagues are “more worried about getting drunk every night with the next lobbyists they're going to screw” than doing their jobs.
“I’m not running for reelection because I don’t want to work with a bunch of hypocrites,” he said. “It’s gross.”
The Ethics Committee’s report, released last week, found Santos had lied about his education and incurred multiple civil judgments totaling thousands of dollars. It also suggested that he failed to properly disclose the $800,000 in personal loans he reported making to his campaign to the Federal Election Commission, and improperly reimbursed himself with donor money for loans he did not make. It also cites the 23 charges filed against Santos in federal court last month, to which he has pleaded not guilty.
“[T]he evidence uncovered by the Investigative Subcommittee (ISC) revealed that Representative George Santos cannot be trusted,” the report concluded. “At nearly every opportunity, he placed his desire for private gain above his duty to uphold the Constitution, federal law, and ethical principles.”
Guest’s resolution is the third attempt to oust Santos from Congress, starting with a Democrat-led expulsion vote in May. Santos survived that attempt, and a second one brought by New York Republicans earlier this month, but several representatives who voted against those resolutions recently signaled that they had changed their minds.
Rep. Robert Garcia of California confirmed during the livestream that the House planned to vote on the expulsion shortly after the Thanksgiving break, and urged Santos to resign, saying: “George, we’re going to expel you.”
But the New York congressman remained defiant.
“They want to kick me out of a job they didn’t put me in,” he said. “I’m not leaving. Come hell or high water, it’s done when I say it’s done.”
However, he admitted that things didn’t look good for him.
“I know I’m going to get expelled when this expulsion resolution goes to the floor,” he said. “I’ve done the math over and over, and it doesn’t look really good.”
