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.
From one side, Johnson faces pressure from Santos’s loudest GOP critics — including vulnerable New York Republicans — to help remove a lawmaker they deem a drag on their reelection chances. On the other are a host of Republicans raising alarms that removing Santos without a criminal conviction would set a dangerous precedent, one that could empower rival lawmakers to override the wishes of voters for political ends.
“This thing, in my view, could be easily weaponized by some future Speaker who is not nearly as principled as Mike Johnson,” Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.), an expulsion opponent, said heading into the vote. “I just think it’s a terrible precedent to set.”
Seeking a middle ground, Johnson has expressed his reluctance to back the expulsion resolution, citing those precedent concerns, while also emphasizing that he and his leadership team will not pressure members of his GOP conference to protect Santos. Instead, Johnson is leaving individual lawmakers the room “to vote their conscience.”
An additional factor hanging over the debate — and the Republicans’ decision whether to support expulsion or not — is overtly political.
With just a four-vote majority, Johnson can afford almost no defections as he attempts to pass a series of government spending bills, and avert a government shutdown, in the weeks and months ahead. Removing Santos would trim that slight edge even further. And the coming resignation of Rep. Bill Johnson (R-Ohio) in March — and the potential that former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) might also run early for the exits — has only complicated the math problem facing GOP leaders. Some Democrats have accused Republicans of keeping Santos around only to maximize that slim advantage.
“Do you think for any minute, if Republicans had a 25-seat majority, they would care about George Santos’s vote?” Rep. Pete Aguilar (Calif.), chair of the House Democratic Caucus, asked this week.
Although 31 Democrats had voted to keep Santos in his seat just weeks ago, he won’t enjoy the same level of Democratic support — if any at all — this time around. Instead, a number of those 31 Democrats said the Ethics Committee’s findings were damning enough to swing their votes in favor of expulsion, even without a criminal conviction.
“I am more comfortable now that there’s an internal investigation, internal due process, and the fact that they decided to actually release all the evidence, release their findings, was extraordinary,” said Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.), who had opposed expulsion just weeks ago, but is now ready to support it.
The removal of Santos would be historic: He would be just the sixth House lawmaker to be expelled since Congress was established 234 years ago, and just the third since the Civil War. He would also be the first Republican lawmaker to be ejected and the only one in the modern era to suffer that fate without first being convicted of crimes by a court of law.
Santos has leaned heavily on that legal distinction — he’s been indicted but not convicted — in accusing his critics of undermining the will of the voters who sent him to Washington.
“Every member expelled in history of this institution has been convicted of crimes or Confederate turncoats guilty of treason. Neither those apply to me, but here we are,” Santos said during debate on the House floor Thursday. “On what basis does this body feel that precedent must be changed for me — an American citizen, duly elected, elected to represent the 3rd District of New York?
“I have been convicted of no crimes, Mr. Speaker.”
Friday’s vote could mark the end of one of the most colorful — and scandal-plagued — stints on Capitol Hill, which began amid revelations Santos had fabricated large portions of his past in the lead-up to his 2022 victory. Those early disclosures sparked even greater scrutiny of his nebulous background, and the résumé fictions — many of which Santos acknowledged — eventually gave way to much more serious charges, culminating in his indictment on 23 federal counts of campaign finance, wire fraud, and related allegations. Santos has pleaded not guilty to all counts.
Those charges ensure that, while Santos’s political headache may be soon to close, his legal troubles are just heating up: Santos’s trial begins in September 2024.
Upping the pressure, two of Santos’s former staffers — ex-fundraiser Samuel Miele and previous campaign manager Nancy Marks — have pleaded guilty to crimes linked to the New Yorker, raising questions of whether or not they will testify against Santos.
While his fate hangs in the balance ahead of Friday’s vote, Santos has consistently said he believes this week will be his last on Capitol Hill, telling reporters “probably” when asked if he thinks he will be expelled.
“If you go based on math, I believe so,” he added.
With that calculation in mind, the embattled lawmaker is making sure to air all his grievances — loudly — before losing his seat in Congress.
“I will have fun on my way out, don’t worry about it,” Santos told reporters in a wide-ranging conversation Thursday. “I have plenty of receipts.”
The first-term lawmaker launched a press tour of sorts this week, holding an early-morning press conference, convening a 45-minute sit-down with reporters, and taking to the House floor to decry the Ethics Committee and its incriminating findings.
He’s targeting his colleagues, too.
On Thursday, Santos moved to force a vote to expel Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.) after the New York Democrat was charged with — then pleaded guilty to — a misdemeanor for pulling a fire alarm in a House office building ahead of a key vote.
That same day, he told reporters that he plans to file “a slew” of ethics complaints against unnamed lawmakers “to make sure that we keep the playing field even.”
“I will do the same thing members did to me,” Santos said.
As the clock ticks and Santos masterminds his potentially final acts in Congress, the 11-month lawmaker said he has come to terms with his current predicament — and will live with whatever happens during Friday’s momentous vote.
“I’m done losing sleep; I’m done stressing,” Santos told reporters Thursday. “I have just made peace with God in the most, best way possible and said whatever comes my way, I will accept it and I will move on with my life.”