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.
“All these members are pushing this,” Santos told reporters Tuesday. “They want me to resign because they don’t want to take this tough vote that sets the precedent to their own demise in the future. They can keep doing this, but my message to them is either put up or shut up, and enough of the charade.”
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, Republican Rep. Michael Guest of New Jersey, chairman of the House Ethics Committee, introduced a resolution to expel Santos, but did not bring it up as privileged.
Garcia said he introduced his own resolution because he wanted to vote on expelling Santos this week, and had doubts that Republicans would actually move forward with a vote on Guest’s resolution.
“This forces a vote this week,” he told reporters. “If they want to introduce their own resolution now that this has happened, they’re welcome to do so. But our goal is to expel him this week.”
Democratic Rep. Dan Goldman of New York, a co-sponsor of Garcia’s resolution, said it’s “an insurance policy” on holding a vote as soon as possible.
House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana has talked to Santos about his options and told him a resignation would prevent members of the conference from “having to take some very tough votes,” according to GOP Rep. Kevin Hern of Oklahoma.
Santos said he spoke with Johnson earlier Tuesday and over Thanksgiving, and that the speaker had not asked him to resign.
“He made a point to say he was not calling to ask me to resign,” Santos said.
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.
— Alejandro Alvarez and Nikole Killion contributed reporting.
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