Rep. George Santos (R-NY), who on Friday was expelled from Congress amid his litany of scandals, was slapped with another damning accusation just before the vote, this time from a now-former GOP colleague who alleged Santos’ campaign illegally charged his credit card for “contribution amounts that exceeded FEC limits.”
Rep. Max Miller (R-OH) made the bombshell revelation in an email to fellow GOP House members on Friday morning, writing that he isn’t the only member of Congress to fall victim to Santos’ illegal charges.
Miller added that the personal card of his mother was also charged without her authorization, though he didn’t specify for how much.
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“Neither my Mother nor I approved these charges or were aware of them,” Miller wrote in the email, which was obtained by Punchbowl.
Miller said he knows of “roughly 400 other people” who’ve had a similar experience with Santos’ campaign. Those allegations line up with what prosecutors laid out against Santos in October in a superseding indictment, which mentioned him allegedly charging donors for more than they’d agreed to.
Miller told colleagues that he and his mother still haven’t gotten their allegedly stolen money back, despite them together spending “tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees” in their efforts.
Miller wrote in his email that he would vote to expel, and it appears the last-second communication may have swayed other representatives to do the same, according to Rep. David Joyce (R-OH).
After the vote, Joyce told CNN that the scandal-plagued Santos appeared poised to narrowly survive the expulsion vote before Miller came forward with his personal experience—first on the House floor on Thursday, and in more detail in Friday’s email.
“When you start ripping off other members, if that’s not enough to convince people that maybe you shouldn’t be here, then I don’t know what it’s going to take,” Joyce said. “I think Max’s last-minute email to all the members determined the outcome.”
In the end, the House voted 311-114 in favor of sending Santos packing, which included expulsion votes from 105 Republicans.
Santos is also staring down the possibility of lengthy jail time. He faces 23 federal charges related to alleged campaign finance fraud, which the House Ethics Committee said it also found evidence of.
The writing appears to be on the wall for Santos, who’s already witnessed his former treasurer, Nancy Marks, throw him under the bus in October as she pleaded guilty to financial crimes related to Santos’ campaign. Marks accused Santos of scheming with her to deceive deep-pocketed donors and to trick the National Republican Congressional Committee into believing Santos had reached a donation threshold that’d qualify his campaign for extra “financial and logistical” support.
