WASHINGTON (CN) — Just a year after it began, the George Santos saga is over, as the House voted Friday to expel the lawmaker from the lower chamber amid swirling claims that he committed fraud and violated campaign finance law.
The vote to remove Santos, elected in 2022 to represent New York’s 3rd Congressional District, cleared the House on a 311-114 vote. More than 100 Republicans voted in favor of expelling their colleague, breaking with members of GOP leadership including House Speaker Mike Johnson and Majority Leader Steve Scalise.
Just two Democrats voted to keep Santos in Congress: Virginia Representative Bobby Scott and Georgia Representative Nikema Williams.
Friday’s vote was the third attempt by members of Congress to expel Santos, who has been mired in controversy since he took office. The lawmaker is facing scores of federal criminal charges, including that he lied to federal elections regulators about campaign donations, misled donors and used campaign funds for personal expenses.
Santos is only the sixth member of Congress to be expelled from the chamber, joining a group of disgraced lawmakers that includes former confederates and a convicted felon.
Leaving Congress after Friday’s vote, the former New York Republican did not take questions from reporters and quickly left Capitol Hill in the back of a black Jaguar F-Pace luxury SUV.
Santos has blasted his former colleagues for seeking an expulsion over what he frames as the “mere allegations” against him. During a press conference Thursday morning, the lawmaker warned that removing him from the House would set a “dangerous precedent” under which alleged misconduct is “sufficient to have members removed from office who were duly elected by their people in their respective states and districts.”
“This will haunt them in the future,” Santos said.
Although the House voted against removing the embattled lawmaker in a similar vote in early November, things began to shift just weeks later following the release of a House Ethics Committee report which concluded that Santos “sought to fraudulently exploit every aspect of his House candidacy for his own personal financial profit.”
The ethics panel’s report uncovered evidence that it said supports the nearly two dozen criminal charges levied against Santos in October by the Justice Department. Congressional investigators found that, among other things, the lawmaker knowingly made false statements to the Federal Election Commission and spent campaign funds on Botox, designer clothes and the adult content platform OnlyFans.
Santos, for his part, has decried the ethics investigation as a “sham” and has maintained his innocence. The former lawmaker has pleaded not guilty to the 23 federal charges, including identity theft and money laundering, levied against him by the Justice Department.
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