Here’s How a Member of Congress Like George Santos Can Be Expelled

Before Friday, of more than 11,000 Americans who have served in the US House of Representatives, only five had been expelled by their colleagues. And three of those were kicked out for conduct deemed disloyal to the US before or during the Civil War. The expulsion of first-term Representative George Santos, a New York Republican, was therefore unusual. Then again, so are the allegations against him.

The latest resolution calling for Santos’s expulsion was filed on Nov. 17 by Republican Michael Guest of Mississippi, the chairman of the House Ethics Committee. It was the third attempt at kicking Santos out of Congress. Guest’s resolution relied heavily on the findings of a report by the Ethics Committee, which found “substantial evidence” that Santos committed violations of federal law and rules of the House. Specific allegations include falsely reporting loans received by his 2020 House campaign, making “systemic” reporting errors in his 2020 and 2022 Federal Election Commission filings and using campaign funds for personal use. Santos also faces an ongoing federal criminal prosecution in which he faces 23 charges, including fraud, money laundering, falsifying records and aggravated identity theft. All this was on top of the heap of apparent fictions Santos told while running his successful House campaign. Those included that he graduated from Baruch College, was a volleyball champion, worked at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Citigroup Inc., was wealthy enough to loan his campaign $800,000, had Holocaust survivors as grandparents and founded a charity for animals.