Republican fabulist George Santos has been expelled from Congress in an extraordinary vote after his long history of lying was exposed and he was hit with multiple criminal charges.
The Long Island congressman, who stole donor funds to spend on OnlyFans and Botox, fled Capitol Hill as he became just the sixth House member in history to be kicked out.
Over 100 Republicans joined Democrats in booting out the fabulist liar in a historic vote Friday totaling 311 to 114, with two members voting ‘present.’
Santos stormed off the House floor minutes before the vote sealing his fate concluded. He warned reporters immediately after that the House ‘set a new dangerous precedent for themselves’ adding, ‘to hell with this place.’
Facing the daunting vote count, serial fabulist 35-year-old George Santos remained defiant until the very end, but said he would leave Congress if it is ‘God’s will.’
His mountains of lies include fabricating family links to the Holocaust, 9/11 killing his mother, working on Wall Street, recovering from a brain tumor, being of Ukrainian-Jewish descent and starting a charity.
Santos stormed off the House floor minutes before the vote sealing his fate concluded
Rep. George Santos (R-NY) is surrounded by journalists as he leaves the U.S. Capitol after his fellow members of Congress voted to expel him from the House of Representatives
It’s the sixth time the House of Representatives has voted to expel a member in history. And it is the first time a member has been expelled without a conviction or because of support for the Confederacy during Civil War times.
Santos survived a vote to expel him last month because 31 Democrats and most Republicans voted to keep him, many of them saying they would rather wait until an Ethics Committee report came out detailing his wrongdoings. It takes a two-thirds vote in the House to expel a sitting member of Congress.
This vote was different, with 105 total Republicans voting to boot out their colleague. Santos is the first member to be expelled in more than two decades.
The devastating ethics report alleged he improperly diverted campaign contributions to pay for Botox treatments, Hermes bags, OnlyFans purchases and cash withdrawals at a casino.
Now, the Republican’s thin majority in the House is even smaller, and the GOP can only afford to lose three votes. The new breakdown totals 221 Republicans and 213 Democrats.
Despite denying it, internet sleuths appear to have discovered that Santos – who is claimed to be pictured here dressed in drag in 2007 – confirmed it himself in a 2011 post on Wikipedia
Some in GOP leadership – including Speaker Mike Johnson and GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik – were reluctant to expel Santos because he has not been convicted in court for his alleged crimes.
Santos’ expulsion from the House is immediate and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul will have to declare the seat vacant and call for a special election to fill his position.
Hochul wrote on X Friday: ‘I am prepared to undertake the solemn responsibility of filling the vacancy in New York’s 3rd District. The people of Long Island deserve nothing less.’
Santos has pleaded not guilty to 23 charges in federal court, including identity theft, charging his donors’ credit cards without their approval and submitting false campaign reports. He is not expected to face a trial until next September.
In the now-public ethics report, Santos was found to have used campaign money and donations to fund a lavish lifestyle, engaged in fraud, filed false election reports and ‘willfully’ violated ethics.
The freshman member called his expulsion vote and the report ‘theater for the American people at the expense of the American people because no real work’s getting done.’
‘I’ve accepted the fate. I believe that if it’s God’s will to keep me here, I will stay. And if it is His will for me to leave, I will leave, and I will do so graciously,’ he told Fox & Friends in an interview hours before he was set to be judged by his colleagues.
Separately, Santos has already pleaded not guilty to 23 charges in federal court, including identity theft, charging his donors’ credit cards without their approval and submitting false campaign reports.
He is not expected to face a trial until next September.
The Ethics Committee said two charges of $1,500 and one $1,400 on the congressman’s campaign debit card, which were not submitted to the FEC, were listed as ‘Botox’.
The report notes another $20,000 transfer from the campaign to Santos’ company Devolder, whose account had a negative balance at the time. From there, money was used to make $6,000 worth of purchases at Ferragamo, withdraw $800 in cash at a casino, withdraw another $1,000 in cash near Santos’ apartment, and to pay his rent.
The report found Santos also received repayments to his personal account for money he had never loaned to the campaign.
Ethics report key takeaways:
- House Ethics Committee found Santos ‘sought to fraudulently exploit every aspect of his House candidacy for his own personal financial profit’
- Says the Long Island lawmaker was a ‘willing participant’ in a ‘complex web of unlawful activity’
- Santos spent thousands in campaign funds on Botox treatments and trips to Atlantic City with his husband
- The Republican used $3,000 in campaign funds for an Airbnb in the Hamptons
- Transfer to his business was used on $6,000 of luxury Ferragamo goods, to pay his rent and for $800 at a casino
- Santos made a purchase on his campaign debit card note as ‘Botox’
- Santos told his campaign staff he had a Maserati despite no evidence he ever owned one
- Inflated six personal loans to his campaign. He claimed they were worth $80,000 when they only amounted to $3,500
- Santos has pleaded not guilty to 23 charges in federal court, including identity theft, charging donor’s credit cards without authorization and submitting false campaign finance reports
In the now-public ethics report, Santos was found to have used campaign money and donations to fund a lavish lifestyle, engaged in fraud, filed false election reports and ‘willfully’ violated ethics
Congressman George Santos said he will introduce a measure to expel Rep. Jamaal Bowman for pulling a fire alarm ahead of a House vote to remove Santos himself
The defiant New York Republican again insisted he will not resign – he will force his colleagues to remove him and will go down fighting
He inflated over six personal loans he made to the campaign – which in reality totaled $3,500 but he had claimed would total as much as $80,000.
‘Representative Santos sought to fraudulently exploit every aspect of his House candidacy for his own personal financial profit,’ the report stated.
In announcing he would not run again but would remain in Congress through the end of his term, Santos posted on X: ‘My family deserves better than to be under the gun from the press all the time.’
The other lies that the infamous liar told span nearly every aspect of his life.
In one interview, Santos said his family name on his mother’s side was the historically Jewish name ‘Zabrovsky.’
‘My grandfather was born in Kyiv and left in the late 20s and migrated to Belgium where he met my grandmother and then started a family,’ Santos told Fox Digital in February. ‘We don’t carry the Ukrainian last name, for a lot of people who are descendants of World War II refuges or survivors of the Holocaust, a lot of names or paperwork were changed in the name of survival.’
Reports indicate that there have been no successful efforts to find any Jewish or Ukrainian heritage in his family tree according to the Forward.
Santos said in a separate interview in 2020 that he was raised by ‘a white Caucasian mother, an immigrant from Belgium. But Santos’ mother, Fatima Devolder, was born in Brazil, according to her obituary in 2016.
Additionally, resurfaced tweets showed that Santos, who is Brazilian-American, claimed in July 2020 on Twitter that he was biracial, meaning ‘Caucasian and black.’
Santos also wrote in a July 2021 tweet that he was ‘blocking’ an account with the handle ‘9/11 was a victimless crime’ because his mother was a victim of the terrorist attack.
He wrote, ‘9/11 claimed my mother’s life… so I’m blocking so I don’t ever have to read this again,’ after the user responded to a tweet from Santos regarding immigration.
An obituary for Santos’ mother, however, states that she died in December 2016, which is more than 15 years after the attack took place.
He also confirmed the real date in a December 2021 tweet where he said: ‘December 23rd this year marks 5 years I lost my best friend and mentor. Mom you will live forever in my heart.’
Santos’ campaign website said his mother ‘survived the tragic events of September 11th’ in the South Tower office of the World Trade Center and died ‘a few years later when she lost her battle to cancer.’
A New York Times report had described Santos’ mother as a ‘domestic worker’ or ‘housekeeper.’
His campaign website described his mother as a top executive.
‘George’s work ethic comes from his mother, who came from nothing, but worked her way up to be the first female executive at a major financial institution,’ the website states.