(UnitedVoice.com) – Rep. George Santos (R-NY) has made a splash in Congress for all of the wrong reasons. The conservative lawmaker won his seat in November 2022, but soon after the election, the stories he told on the campaign trail started unraveling. Federal authorities have now indicted him twice, and he’s facing decades in prison. There was an effort to expel him from Congress, but it failed — again.
Effort to Expel
New York Republicans filed a resolution to expel Santos from Congress. The Conservatives said he wasn’t “fit to serve” the people of his district. On November 1, the House took a vote, and Santos survived the attempt to kick him out. It was the second time a resolution had gone to the floor to vote him out.
This time, 179 members of Congress, including 24 Republicans, voted to expel Santos. However, his seat was saved when 213 of his colleagues voted against the resolution (182 Republicans and 31 Democrats). Nineteen others voted present.
Fibs and Indictments
During the congressional campaign, Santos made a number of statements about his education, work, and family history that turned out not to be true. For instance, he said that his mother was at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. The New York Times revealed that immigration documents showed his mother, Fatima Devolder, wasn’t even in the United States at the time of the terrorist attack.
In another instance, Santos appealed to Jewish voters by telling them that he was Jewish, too. He later told Piers Morgan that he pretended to be Jewish as a joke. He explained that he was raised Catholic, but his family is Jewish, so he’s “Jew-ish.”
The campaign fibs are the least of Santos’ problems. On October 10, the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York announced it filed a superseding indictment against the congressman who was already under indictment on other federal charges. The newest charges included wire fraud, falsification of records, false statements, conspiracy, credit card fraud, and aggravated identity theft.
Federal authorities allege Santos stole people’s identities and then made charges on donors’ credit cards without their authorization. He’s accused of trying to charge $44,800 and concealing the source of the funds by listing the source as himself, other contributors, or his relatives. On one occasion, he allegedly charged $12,000 to a donor’s credit card and then transferred most of it into his personal bank account.
Santos spoke to reporters after the vote and said he intends to “continue to fight to defend” himself and to “serve the 3rd Congressional District of New York until the people choose” otherwise.
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