Who is George Santos, fraud whom US lawmakers have kicked out of the House of Representatives?

With his expulsion, Santos becomes only the sixth ever member to be expelled from the US House — the first three having fought for the Confederacy during the Civil War, and the other two being convicted of crimes.

Who is George Santos? What are the allegations against him? And how did he get ousted from the US House of Representatives?

Santos’ tenuous relationship with truth

George Santos, 35, was elected from New York’s 3rd congressional district in the mid-term elections in 2022. Soon, things took a downhill — and bizarre — turn.

Upon scrutiny, his seemingly-impressive biography began to unravel. The New York Times found out that he did not graduate from the college where he claimed to have been a volleyball star. Nor did he work in Citigroup and Goldman Sachs, or start an animal rescue charity as he claimed. His repeated claims of having descended from Jewish refugees fleeing the Holocaust were also found to be untrue.

As The NYT reported, “it wasn’t just that Santos exaggerated his résumé — he allegedly invented it out of whole cloth.” Santos would eventually admit to adding “a little bit of fluff” on his résumé, but maintained that he “was not a criminal”.

Multiple criminal allegations

Santos, however, faces multiple allegations of criminality, from pocketing funds ostensibly raised for animal welfare to skimming card information from ATMs. In May, 2023, he pled guilty and agreed to pay fines in a remote court hearing in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in a cheque-book fraud case.

In May, the Department of Justice slapped Santos with 13 counts of wire fraud, money laundering, stealing public funds and lying on federal disclosure forms, and (briefly) took him into custody.

The lock has already been changed on George Santos’ former congressional office door. pic.twitter.com/UNYQeJeeL3

— Mike Sington (@MikeSington) December 1, 2023

A superseding indictment filed in October upped the charges to 23, specifically accusing him of inflating his campaign’s fundraising numbers and charging campaign contributors’ credit cards without their consent.
A trial date has been set for September 2024 in Long Island, New York unless Santos reaches a plea deal with prosecutors first.

A damning Ethics Committee report

In early November, there was another attempt to expel George Santos from the House. He survived because in that instance, 182 Republicans and 31 Democrats voted against removing him on the grounds that his criminal case should be resolved first. But subsequently, a scathing Ethics Committee report significantly eroded the support he still enjoyed.

The bi-partisan committee’s report found that Santos “sought to fraudulently exploit every aspect of his House candidacy for his own personal financial profit.” And like much else about George Santos, the findings were as damning as they were bizarre.

Among other things, the report found that Santos charged almost $4,000 for spa treatments, including Botox, to his congressional campaign account, as well as spent more than $4,000 of campaign money on luxury goods, makeup, and OnlyFans, an online platform known for sexual content.

The pattern of personal use of campaign money was so extensive, that the report claimed that Santos’ election “has called into question the integrity of the House.” The report said that Santos declined to cooperate with the investigation.

Politics behind Santos’ expulsion

Following the report, George Santos said he would not run for re-election. While many Republicans were disgusted by his behaviour, top leadership probably still wanted him in the House to protect the slim GOP majority. With his expulsion, which received the support of 105 Republicans, the GOP’ majority in the House is reduced to a slim 221-213.

New York state Governor Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, now has 10 days to call a special election for what is seen as a swing seat — meaning that the Republican majority may be further dented by this debacle. Before Santos’ win in 2022, the district was represented by Democrat Tom Suozzi, who is now among the 20 candidates, including eight Republicans, to have already filed to run for the seat.

Santos, however, did not go down quietly. After refusing to resign despite pressure from his own colleagues, on Thursday he went on the offensive, introducing his own expulsion resolution against Jamaal Bowman (a New York Democrat who admitted pulling a fire alarm in a congressional office building, a misdemeanour) and calling Max Miller, a Republican from Ohio, an “accused … woman beater” in a clash on the House floor.

As he walked out of the Capitol building, surrounded by reporters, his final remark was: “To hell with this place.”