The rushed expulsion of George Santos
Byron York
THE RUSHED EXPULSION OF GEORGE SANTOS. The House voted Friday morning to expel Rep. George Santos (R-NY). The vote was 311 to 114, well over the two-thirds requirement for expulsion. Santos has now become just the third House member to be expelled since the Civil War.
Back in February, an edition of this newsletter was titled “Justice for George Santos.” The point was not that Santos deserved to remain in the House of Representatives. Indeed, Santos had no business being in the House, and it was an embarrassment that he was elected in the first place. But he was elected and he was a member of Congress, and it should have been important that lawmakers give him a full and fair process if they wanted to expel him.
First, a brief look at the members of the House who have been expelled. Three were expelled when they joined the Confederacy in the Civil War. No other member was expelled between 1861 and 1980. Then, in 1980, Democratic Rep. Michael Myers was expelled after being convicted on federal bribery charges and a House Ethics Committee vote recommending he be kicked out. In 2002, Democratic Rep. James Traficant was expelled after being convicted on federal bribery charges and a House Ethics Committee vote recommending he be expelled.
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That’s it, until George Santos. Putting aside the Civil War expulsions, which were a thankfully unique circumstance, the House has only expelled members after 1) the member was convicted of a crime and 2) the House Ethics Committee recommended he be expelled. Today, the House ignored those two precedents in getting rid of Santos.
Santos was indicted in May, and the Justice Department filed a superseding indictment in October. The first indictment charged that Santos “devised and executed a scheme to defraud supporters of his candidacy for the House and to obtain money from them by fraudulently inducing supporters to contribute funds to [a Santos company] under the false pretense that the money would be used to support Santos’s candidacy and then actually spending thousands of dollars of the solicited funds on personal expenses, including luxury designer clothing and credit card purchases.” The second indictment said, “Santos is charged with stealing people’s identities and making charges on his own donors’ credit cards without their authorization, lying to the Federal Election Commission and, by extension, the public about the financial state of the campaign.”
Let’s just say the case against Santos appears very, very strong. The problem, for Santos opponents, was that he was not scheduled to stand trial until September 2024, and they wanted to get rid of him before that.
The House Ethics Committee conducted a speeded-up investigation of Santos and two weeks ago released a devastating report on his actions. The report said Santos used campaign funds for all sorts of personal reasons — travel, Botox treatments, a $4,127.80 purchase at Hermes, payoffs of his own credit cards, and more. In addition, Santos has lied about virtually every aspect of his life and background.
Again, the evidence against Santos seems strong. But the Ethics Committee decided not to recommend Santos’s expulsion. That would have required a committee vote, and Chairman Michael Guest (R-MS) explained that doing so would have involved a “much longer process.” Guest continued: “The investigative subcommittee decided that they were going to compile the report, they would release the report to the members, into the public, and based upon that, then our members can take whatever action that they felt necessary.”
The Ethics Committee report, even though committee members declined to recommend expulsion, was enough for lawmakers who wanted to get rid of Santos. The report was released on Nov. 16, and Santos was gone on Dec. 1.
Now the House has a new standard for expulsion. A member does not have to be convicted of any crime to be expelled. Indictment is enough. And the Ethics Committee does not have to recommend expulsion for a member to be expelled. A report is enough. It seems obvious that in the future it will be easier for the House to throw members out even if there is doubt about their guilt. Nothing has to be settled or adjudicated.
In the rush to get Santos, 311 members of the House, including 206 Democrats and 105 Republicans, cut corners and did what they wanted, precedent or not. Now what? In the future, will some case arise that illustrates the old saying, “What goes around comes around”? In Washington, it always does.
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