The ethics watchdog within the United States House of Representatives just announced it has substantial evidence that Rep. George Santos committed multiple crimes and ethics violations.
This includes evidence that Santos misused campaign funds on luxury clothing, personal vacations, cosmetic medical procedures, and a website known primarily for pornographic content.
Here are direct quotes from the House Ethics Committee’s report on Rep. George Santos:
- “Representative Santos sought to fraudulently exploit every aspect of his House candidacy for his own personal financial profit.”
- “He blatantly stole from his campaign.”
- “He deceived donors into providing what they thought were contributions to his campaign but were in fact payments for his personal benefit.”
- “He reported fictitious loans to his political committees to induce donors and party committees to make further contributions to his campaign — and then diverted more campaign money to himself as purported ‘repayments’ of those fictitious loans.”
- “He used his connections to high value donors and other political campaigns to obtain additional funds for himself through fraudulent or otherwise questionable business dealings.”
- “And he sustained all of this through a constant series of lies to his constituents, donors, and staff about his background and experience.”
This all comes on top of Santos having already been charged with 23 federal crimes.
And in terms of any criminal liability, Santos of course deserves his day in court and is innocent until proven guilty.
But should George Santos get to keep his job as a United States Congressman?
- In essence, Santos lied (a lot) to get a job he wasn’t qualified for (at all), then, according to the Ethics Committee, exploited that position to fraudulently enrich himself.
- Anyone else who did that would almost certainly get fired from their job.
- And while Santos says he will not seek reelection — if we can believe anything that comes out of his mouth — he is refusing to resign.
- So it’s up to the rest of the House of Representatives to expel him.
To every member of Congress besides George Santos:
It would be an unforgivable disservice — to his constituents, to the dignity of the office, and to the American people — if the United States House of Representatives does not immediately move to expel George Santos.
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- Robert Weissman, President of Public Citizen
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