Santos hit with second effort to oust him this week

Rep. Anthony D’Esposito (R-N.Y.) moved to force a vote on expelling Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) Tuesday evening, setting in motion the second effort of the day to oust the embattled lawmaker.

D’Esposito called the Santos expulsion resolution sponsored by House Ethics Committee Chairman Michael Guest (R-Miss.) to the floor as a privileged measure, a maneuver that forces the chamber to act on the resolution within two legislative days.

D’Esposito moved to force a vote hours after Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) did the same for his resolution to expel Santos, setting the stage for competing efforts to oust the indicted representative.

The increased push to expel Santos comes after the Ethics Committee released a scathing report that said Santos “violated federal criminal laws,” and found that he used campaign funds on trips to Atlantic City and Las Vegas, Botox, at the luxury brand Hermés and for purchases from OnlyFans, a subscription platform that is largely used for adult content.

Santos already survived two expulsion votes this year — one in May and another earlier this month — but the push to oust him this week has the best chance for success yet, as some lawmakers who backed the embattled congressman in the past now say they will vote to boot him.

Santos, for his part, has remained defiant in the face of the expulsion push, taking to the House floor Tuesday night to slam the Ethics Committee’s report as “incomplete, irresponsible and littered with hyperbole and littered with bias opinions.” He also emphasized that he does not plan to resign, essentially forcing his colleagues to decide his fate on the floor once again.

He did, however, predict that the push to expel him will be successful this week, telling reporters Tuesday evening “if you go based on math, I believe so.”

Shortly before D’Esposito formally introduced the expulsion measure, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) was seen huddling on the House floor with a number of the New York Republicans who have led the charge in attempting to eject Santos.

Rep. Nick Lakota (R-N.Y.) said afterward that the group was simply “deliberating over who was to make it privileged,” and that Johnson was “leading the consensus that it made sense for Mr. D’Esposito” to take up that task.

Guest introduced his resolution to expel Santos one day after the Ethics panel released its blistering report, but had not yet moved to force a vote on it.

But Johnson, who opposed Santos’s expulsion earlier in the month, has not endorsed the most recent effort, according to the New York Republicans, let alone committed to helping move the measure when it hits the floor later this week.

“He didn’t say either way,” D’Esposito said. “He has said throughout this whole process that we need to do what’s best for the district back home, and what’s best for New York. And that’s what we’re doing.” 

Johnson did, however, talk to Santos over the Thanksgiving recess and again on Tuesday, the embattled lawmaker told reporters. Santos said the Speaker called him on Tuesday and asked “if I had made my decision,” and Santos responded “yes; put up or shut up at this point.”

The GOP lawmakers said it remains unclear when exactly the resolution will come to the floor. 

The GOP lawmakers said it remains unclear when exactly the resolutions will come to the floor. But earlier on Tuesday, Garcia and Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.), who is co-leading the Democratic push to oust Santos, appeared open to backing Guest’s resolution — and rescinding their own — should it come to the floor for a vote.

“If they try to, let’s say, get us to pull our resolution, we’re not gonna pull our resolution until they have their vote. If they’re gonna choose their own resolution, we’re actually gonna look at that resolution before we pull our resolution,” Garcia said after forcing a vote on his measure, adding at a separate point “the more the merrier.”

“This is an insurance policy to make sure that the Congress of the United States will vote as soon as possible to determine whether or not George Santos continues to belong in the Congress,” Goldman said.

Santos had easily survived the last expulsion attempt, on Nov. 1, with only 179 lawmakers voting to oust their embattled colleague, while 213 — including 31 Democrats — voted to keep him in office. That vote, however, came before the Ethics Committee released its damning report, which strongly suggested Santos had committed serious crimes. And a number of those 31 Democrats say they’ll now switch their position and support expulsion. 

“The Ethics report made a huge impact on me,” Rep. Mark Takano (Calif.), one of those 31 Democrats, said Tuesday evening. “My sense was that there was a lot of evidence that he was involved in serious criminal conduct.” 

Only five House lawmakers have been expelled from the lower chamber in the nation’s history — three of them for opposing the Union during the Civil War — and the others were booted only after being convicted of federal crimes. Santos has leaned heavily on that precedent, accusing those pushing for his ouster of denying him due process and the opportunity to clear his name in a court of law.

“This expulsion vote simply undermines and underscores the precedent that we’ve had in this chamber,” Santos said on the House floor Tuesday. “It starts and puts us in a new direction, a dangerous one, that sets a very dangerous precedent for the future.”

“Are we to now assume that one is no longer innocent until proven guilty, and they are in fact guilty until proven innocent? Or are we now to simply assume that because somebody doesn’t like you they get to throw you out of your job,” he continued. “Or better more, does the Constitution bear no consequence, where a duly elected member of the House of Representatives is elected by the general public, but then a couple of politicians decide that they don’t like that person.”

His critics have rejected that argument, and D’Esposito on Tuesday — while acknowledging the high bar suggested by expulsion cases in the past — said Congress should set more stringent rules going forward, beginning with Santos.  

“If we have the opportunity in the 118th Congress to set a new precedent of holding members to a higher standard, I think that’s one we should all sign ourselves up for,” D’Espisito said. 

Updated at 9:06 p.m.