Do you remember the hit Netflix special, “Inventing Anna”? It is the true story of con artist Anna Sorokin who infiltrated New York high society by convincing everyone that she was a German socialite with a massive fortune, while also scamming people of millions of dollars. She lied again and again to gain favor from rich elites, but she taught us about overtrusting the accused in public lies and scams. George Santos is New York’s latest Anna Sorokin.
On the morning of Friday, Dec. 1, 2023, the House of Representatives voted to expel Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) after the House Ethics Committee Report found him in violation of federal law and House rules, according to The Washington Post. This vote was the third attempt to oust him since May, only now well surpassing the two-thirds majority required through bipartisan support as a result of the Ethics Committee’s findings.
George Santos becomes only the sixth House member to be expelled in U.S. history. He is the first in more than 20 years and the first to be removed without a conviction, only indictments, since the Civil War. Many Republican lawmakers, however, including House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.), raised concerns before the vote about the precedent that removing a representative without a conviction could set, according to CBS News. I instead argue in favor of this precedent.
As Matt Ford writes in the New Republic, the “waiting for conviction” precedent is flawed: “For one thing, limiting the reasons for expulsion to only what a federal or state prosecutor can charge in court would allow lawmakers to get away with a wide variety of things that aren’t necessarily crimes. Not every moral or ethical wrong is technically a crime in this country.”
Under scrutiny since as early as January of last year, Santos sits in a unique position. He has been accused, with heavy evidence, of embellishing his resume to win his Congressional seat, of fraud and of illegal use of campaign funds. Let alone the lies about his biographical information, including stating he was Jewish and that his mother died in the 9/11 attacks, both of which have been found to be untrue, according to The New York Times and Vanity Fair.
But the ethics report alleges that Santos reported fictitious loans, stole money from his campaign for OnlyFans, Botox and Hermès, deceived donors, and engaged in fraudulent business dealings, according to CBS News. Santos faces a new 23-count federal indictment, accusing him of stealing identities of campaign donors and using their credit cards, according to USA Today. He has pleaded “not guilty” to all charges. The trial date is set for September 2024 if a plea deal is not reached, as reported in The New York Times.
Despite the 56-page report, the 40 witnesses interviewed, the 170,000 pages of documents and the 37 subpoenas used to create the report—according to Reuters—Santos claims innocence. He posted on X, formerly Twitter, “If there was a single ounce of ETHICS in the ‘Ethics committee’, they would have not released this biased report.”
In Thursday’s House debate on the resolution to expel Santos, he went on to argue that his colleagues in the Republican conference and across the aisle, too, take part in unethical conduct on the daily. As reported by The Hill, current representatives are under investigation for everything from illegal stock trading and unethical management of campaign finances to sexual abuse. According to NY1, verified through the C-SPAN live stream of the debate, “[Santos] brought up domestic abuse allegations leveled at Rep. Max Miller, R-Ohio, on the House floor. He used a slur describing mentally handicapped people in his characterization of how Congress functions when speaking with reporters. He revealed plans to try to expel Rep. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y. at the press conference.”
NY1 and C-SPAN confirm that as Santos stood on the House Floor Thursday, he said he would not simply smear his colleagues, though that is exactly what he did. And while no one enjoys seeing their government turned into a comedy troupe, or better yet a Netflix series, his statements rang true. Our government has an ethics problem, and it is preventing the most basic of laws from being passed.
The House spent over three weeks finding a Speaker. It passed two short-term budget extensions to avoid government shutdowns instead of creating a bipartisan full-year budget, which we still do not have, all while we approach $34 trillion in debt. But perhaps worst of all, the House Speaker is a right-wing conservative with radical views on abortion and same-sex marriage who promoted the 2020 election denial, according to NBC.
Since January of last year, there have been more than 20 preliminary ethics reviews into different representatives. More than 30 members of the House under Ethics investigation since 2009 have refused to cooperate with the office, as George Santos did, according to Business Insider. Congress exhibits a clear lack of moral obligation to comply with ethical conduct and investigations.
To wait for George Santos’ conviction would have been another failure of the House. He was given his due process, as outlined by Rep. Michael Guest (R-Miss.), the Ethics Committee Chair, during the debate on the Floor last Thursday, Nov. 30. But what now for the ethics of the House?
Senator John Fetterman (D-P.A.) renewed his calls for the Senate to vote to expel Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) after Santos’ expulsion, citing Menendez’s indictment on federal bribery and extortion charges for using his position in the Senate to benefit the business elites and government of Egypt between 2018 and 2022. According to Politico and The Hill, federal prosecutors accused him in October of acting as an agent of the government of Egypt while serving as chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
No member of Congress under investigation for illegal management of campaign funds or foreign conspiracy should be representing our country. And it is a shame that it took George Santos for us to unearth ethical violations in Congress. But just as with Santos, to wait for a prosecution while Menendez is receiving foreign intelligence briefings on Israel is symbolic of this country’s lack of ethical morals. I see Santos’ expulsion serving as a precedent for removing unbecoming elected officials that lack the moral and legal obligation necessary to represent our country.
When due process is given, when the accused are given the chance to speak and defend themselves but fail to dispute the evidence, there is a duty to remove that person from a decision-making position. It can be said for Santos and many other congressmen that, just like Anna Sorokin, “For every three crazy things you hear about her, one usually turns out to be true.” Should we have continued to believe Santos when piles of evidence damned him? We have heard lie after lie from politicians, about their background, their experience and their intentions. It is time for us to take George Santos’ advice and fix our government’s ethics dilemma.