Embattled Rep. George Santos (R-NY) won’t be running for reelection after all, following a scathing report from the House Ethics Committee.
After months of investigating the freshman Representative by a special legislative subcommittee, the Ethics Committee released a 56-page report, which can be read here.
Among its many findings, the subcommittee uncovered a “complex web of unlawful activity involving Representative Santos’ campaign, personal, and business finances. Representative Santos sought to fraudulently exploit every aspect of his House candidacy for his own personal financial profit.”
For example, according to the subcommittee, Santos had a business that received $50,000 from donors that had been requested for political purposes, but the money was instead transferred to his personal account and spent on Only Fans, Hermes, and Sephora.
“He blatantly stole from his campaign,” the subcommittee’s report goes on to say. “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.”
In a statement on social media following the report’s release, Santos, who had filed for reelection in 2024 on March 14, said, “I will continue on my mission to serve my constituents up until I am allowed. I will however NOT be seeking re-election for a second term in 2024 as my family deserves better than to be under the gun from the press all the time.”
Also following the report, Ethics Committee Chair Michael Guest (R-MS) plans to file a resolution to expel Santos from Congress on Friday morning, according to his spokesman. That’s on top of several Democrats, including Reps. Dan Goldman of New York and Robert Garcia of California, saying they plan to file their own expulsion resolutions.
Just over two weeks ago, House lawmakers rejected a measure to expel Santos that had been brought to the floor by several of his fellow New York Republicans, by a vote of 179-213.
And Santos’ troubles don’t end on Capitol Hill. He is facing a September 9, 2024 trial date for 23 separate felony counts, including wire fraud, identity theft, credit card theft, money laundering and falsely reporting to the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) that he had loaned his campaign $500,000; in fact, he hadn’t given anything while maintaining less than $8,000 in the bank.
Santos has pleaded not guilty to all counts.
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