New York Republican George Santos expelled from Congress

Caption

The House voted 311-114 to expel New York Republican George Santos, making him the sixth member to ever be expelled in a vote of Congress. / Getty Images

Updated December 1, 2023 at 11:32 AM ET

Members of the House of Representatives voted 311-114 Friday morning to expel New York Republican George Santos from Congress. Santos is the sixth congressman ever to be expelled from Congress.

Santos is accused by prosecutors of a number of financial misdeeds, including reimbursing himself for loans to his congressional campaign that he appears to have never actually made — in essence, stealing money from campaign donors.

Almost all Democrats and more than 100 Republicans voted to expel Santos, who will now be replaced in a special election.

The date for that vote has not yet been set.

Santos represented a district that President Biden won by 10 points, and the decision to expel him shrinks Republicans' already razor-thin majority in the House.

Santos left the Capitol building quickly after the vote, making few remarks to reporters.

At a press conference the day before, Santos said that Congress was taking the job of the American people, who he says should have been allowed to decide his fate at the ballot box. He also suggested that this would not be the last time folks heard from him.

"I'm 35," Santos said. "This doesn't mean it is goodbye forever."

Why was George Santos removed from Congress?

The freshman lawmaker was mired in controversy since before he was sworn into Congress.

The North Shore Leader, a newspaper in Santos' Long Island district, originally raised questions about claims Santos' made in campaign filings in which he estimated his net worth at roughly $11 million. More extensive allegations were published last December in The New York Times.

Among other lies, the 35-year-old Santos falsely claimed to have been a volleyball star at Baruch College, to have worked for Goldman Sachs and Citigroup, and that he was Jewish — stories he later amended or recanted in a December 2022 interview.

"I'm embarrassed and sorry for having embellished my resume," Santos told the New York Post. "I own up to that."

Then, in May, Santos was indicted on 13 criminal charges including wire fraud, money laundering, theft of public funds and making materially false statements to the House of Representatives.

In October, prosecutors added an additional 10 charges in a superseding indictment, following a plea deal by a former campaign finance official affiliated with his campaign.

Led by GOP Rep. Michael Guest of Mississippi, lawmakers on the House Ethics Committee put together a report that corroborated many of the allegations contained in the indictments.

After the report was released, just before the Thanksgiving holiday, Guest put forward the resolution to expel Santos from the House of Representatives.

How often are lawmakers expelled from Congress?

It is rare.

Three men were expelled for supporting the Confederacy during the Civil War.

More recently, Democrats Michael Myers and James Traficant were expelled after being convicted of bribery — in 1980 and 2002, respectively.

Before the vote, Santos said he would wear the distinction "as a badge of honor."

Santos' fate remained unclear until voting began

House Republican leadership had announced that they would not try to marshal their members to vote for or against Santos' expulsion.

The morning of the vote, though, Republican leadership announced that they would be voting against the measure. Speaker Mike Johnson, a constitutional lawyer, said he was concerned about the precedent of expelling a member who had not yet been convicted of a crime.

Just before the vote was about to begin, Max Miller of Ohio, one of Santos' Republican colleagues, sent an email to the full Republican conference, writing that he and his mother were victims of credit card fraud tied to Santos' campaign and that he would be voting to remove Santos.

"Neither my Mother nor I approved these charges or were aware of them," Miller wrote in the email obtained by NPR. "We have spent tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees in the resulting follow up."

Ultimately, the pressure was enough to reach the two-thirds support necessary to remove Santos from office.

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