Drama in the US Congress
Bye, George Santos: Scandal-ridden Republican kicked out of House of Representatives
© Mandel Ngan / AFP
It’s an end with an announcement: After George Santos slipped from one scandal to the next for months, the House of Representatives has now pulled the ripcord. The Republican representative from New York is no longer a member of the US Congress.
The US House of Representatives has the scandal-ridden congressman accused of fraud George Santos ejected. The Chamber of Congress voted on Friday with the necessary two-thirds majority to expel the 35-year-old Republican, who initially made headlines with a series of lies about his CV. Santos is only the sixth representative in US history to be expelled from the House of Representatives.
Two weeks after a damning House Ethics Committee report on Santos, 311 Republican and Democratic lawmakers voted to expel him. 114 MPs voted against it. The two-thirds majority required to expel Santos, who had only been a member of the House of Representatives since the beginning of the year, was clearly achieved. At the beginning of November, a request from a Republican MP to have Santos expelled failed.
Out for George Santos
Santos was elected to the House of Representatives for a New York constituency in last year’s midterm elections. As a result, there were ever new revelations about the politician’s sometimes outrageous false statements about, among other things, his university education, his career path, his family and his religion.
Santos claimed a degree from an elite university and a successful collegiate volleyball career and falsely claimed to have worked for the investment bank Goldman Sachs and the banking group Citigroup.
In May, Santos was indicted by the federal judiciary on charges including fraud, money laundering, theft of public funds and making false statements to the House of Representatives. In October, the charges were expanded to include identity theft in connection with the theft of campaign funds. The deputy pleaded not guilty in court.
In mid-November, the House Ethics Committee made serious allegations against Santos in a report. The report said there was “sufficient evidence” that Santos violated criminal law and other rules. “Representative Santos has fraudulently attempted to exploit every aspect of his candidacy for the House of Representatives for his own personal financial gain.”
Santos is said to have spent campaign donations on shopping and botoy
The politician with Brazilian roots is said to have spent campaign funds on, among other things, the purchase of luxury items from the fashion house Hermès, on visits to casinos, weekend trips and Botox treatments. After the report was published, Santos again rejected calls for his resignation, but announced that he would not run again in the November 2024 congressional elections.
With the expulsion of the scandalous MP, an early election will have to decide on the allocation of the vacant mandate. That gives President Joe Biden’s Democrats a chance to win the seat. That would further reduce the narrow majority of Republicans in the House of Representatives.