The House on Friday expelled Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) in a dramatic and historic vote.
The embattled lawmaker had already survived two expulsion attempts, but an Ethics Committee report released last month prompted more lawmakers to say they were ready to oust Santos from the House.
He is just the sixth lawmaker booted from the chamber in its history.
The House Ethics report said there was clear evidence Santos committed serious crimes and said he “blatantly stole from his campaign” and “deceived donors into providing what they thought were contributions to his campaign but were in fact payments for his personal benefit.”
Santos faces 23 federal counts related to campaign finance, wire fraud and other allegations, to which he has pleaded not guilty.
Follow along with live updates below.
Santos: ‘To hell with this place’
Santos on Friday had some choice words for the institution that had just expelled him: “To hell with this place,” he said as he left the House chamber.
Santos raced out of the Capitol once it was clear he was ousted, but before the vote had been gaveled closed. He was swarmed by reporters but declined to answer any questions.
“The House voted — that’s their vote,” he said. “They just set a new dangerous precedent for themselves.”
Most members of the House GOP leadership team voted against ousting Santos, including Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.), House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) and conference Chair Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.).
National Republican Congressional Committee Chair Richard Hudson (R-N.C.) voted in favor of expulsion.
Former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) did not vote.
Reps. Bobby Scott (Va.) and Nikema Williams (Ga.) were the only Democrats to vote against expelling Santos.
Reps. Al Green (D-Texas) and Jonathan Jackson (D-Ill.) voted present.
What comes next?
Santos’s expulsion leaves the GOP down one vote in its already slim House majority and leaves a vacancy in his Long Island district.
How does the vacancy get filled?
Who could replace Santos?
What does this mean for the GOP majority?
What’s next for Santos?
House expels George Santos
The House voted Friday to expel Rep. George Santos, ending the New York Republican’s tumultuous tenure in Congress and officially etching his name in the history books as the sixth lawmaker ever to be ousted from the lower chamber.
The extraordinary move, unseen in 20 years, took three attempts over six months and required support from large numbers in both parties to meet the inflated threshold — two-thirds of the chamber — for expelling a sitting member. The final tally, 311-114-2, surpassed that mark, with 105 Republicans joining almost all Democrats to remove the scandal-plagued Santos after just 11 months in office.
— Mychael Schnell and Mike Lillis
The House is now voting on whether to expel Santos.
Emmer to vote against ousting Santos
House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) will vote against expelling Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) on Friday, a source familiar told The Hill, another member of GOP leadership backing the embattled Republican as he faces a third vote on his ouster.
— Mychael Schnell
Johnson to vote against expelling Santos
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) will vote against expelling Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) on Friday, a source familiar confirmed to The Hill, handing the New York Republican a key vote as he fights to hold his seat in Congress.
— Mychael Schnell
Goldman responds to due process complaints: ‘Not sufficient to … simply to not be a criminal’
Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) said when he drafted an Ethics Committee complaint against Santos, he “never imagined that the investigation would reveal the extensive corruption that George Santos used not only to deceive the voters of the 3rd District of New York to become a member of this hallowed body, but also to line his own pockets.”
Goldman held a press conference Friday morning, just an hour before the House is set to vote on Santos’s ouster, along with several voters from the district Santos represents.
He called for Santos’s expulsion and fired back against complaints the New York Republican hadn’t been afforded due process.
“This is not a court of law. George Santos’s liberty is not at stake. And the concept of being innocent until proven guilty does not exist in the Congress of the United States. It is not sufficient to be a member of Congress simply to not be a criminal,” he said.
“Our standards for who should vote on critical legislation, who should see classified information, who should represent 776,000 Americans in this body, does not hinge on whether or not you’re simply a criminal. The evidence is overwhelmingly clear that George Santos violated not only the rules of the House, but every moral standard that this House has ever had.”
Santos asked if he brought this on himself
“Fox & Friends” host Brian Kilmeade asked Santos if he thinks he brought this on himself.
“Oh, look, in some way I think we all bring stuff on ourselves, right?” Santos responded. “I just acknowledge, I bear responsibility.”
Santos said he has admitted to “mistakes that I’ve made in the past” on national television.
The New York congressman dared “most members of Congress” to “have the same courage to come on here and tell the entire American public on national television exactly what I did and own up to their shortcomings.”
— Lauren Irwin
Santos: Idea of expulsion ‘tough thing to digest’
Santos said Friday morning that potentially being the sixth member of Congress to be expelled is difficult to digest.
“I mean, it really hasn’t sunken in 100 percent, but it’s really a tough thing to digest,” Santos said in Friday morning interview with Fox News. “I mean, especially when I’ve come here, all of the work I’ve done in this body has been above the board.”
Even if several Republicans back him in the vote Friday, Santos said he has “accepted the fate” that he might get expelled.
“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.”
— Lauren Irwin
How many votes would it take to expel?
Expelling Santos would require a two-thirds vote in the House.
All 435 seats are filled, which means that, assuming full attendance, the number to reach is 290.
Thirty-one Democrats voted against expelling Santos last month. But after the subsequent release of the Ethics report, it is expected that all 213 Democrats vote to oust the New York Republican.
That means it would take 77 Republican votes to expel Santos.
Last month, 24 Republicans voted to oust the embattled lawmaker. That effort was voted down 213-179.
Read the report
The House Ethics Committee released a scathing report on Santos on Nov. 16 that many lawmakers have cited to explain why they plan to vote to expel him.
Santos’s fate hangs in limbo as expulsion vote nears
For Rep. George Santos, the clock is ticking dangerously close to midnight.
The House is set to vote Friday on a resolution to expel the embattled New York Republican, marking the third and most serious attempt to boot Santos from Congress amid his mounting legal and ethical troubles.
The first-term Long Islander easily survived the first two votes aimed at closing the book on his short congressional career. But momentum for his removal has been building on both sides of the aisle following the release of a damning Ethics Committee report last month, raising the real prospect that this week will mark the final chapter in a Capitol Hill saga that has captivated Washington since even before Santos was sworn in.
It remains unclear if Santos will also survive the third expulsion measure, which would require the support of scores of Republicans to meet the high threshold — two-thirds of the House chamber — to be successful. But the controversy has created an early headache for newly installed Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), who is being squeezed between competing interests — and attempting a delicate balancing act — in his approach to Santos’s fate.
— Mike Lillis and Mychael Schnell