In Spirited Debate, George Santos Dares House Colleagues to Expel Him
The House debate on Thursday boiled down to a central question: Should Mr. Santos’s series of lies and alleged crimes outweigh historical precedents?
Michael Gold and
Reporting from New York and Washington.
Follow our live updates on the House vote to expel George Santos.
As the House of Representatives opened the floor on Thursday to debate the fate of George Santos, Republican of New York, the arguments over whether to expel him took an immediate and indecorous turn.
Mr. Santos’s use of Botox was invoked several times, even by those defending him. His detractors pointed to falsified ties to the Holocaust and to his claims, contradicted by paperwork, that his mother was at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11. The final speaker calling to expel Mr. Santos concluded with the briefest of remarks: “You, sir, are a crook.”
The dramatic floor debate was, perhaps, a fitting culmination to a political career that has been defined by spectacle, scandal and lies.
All that could come to an end on Friday, when the House is scheduled to vote on a resolution to expel Mr. Santos, 35, following the release of a damning and detailed report from the House Ethics Committee that found “substantial evidence” that he had violated federal law.
Mr. Santos offered a minimal defense, again refusing to provide evidence that would counter the laundry list of misdeeds and 23 criminal charges that Republicans and Democrats cited to support his removal.
Instead, as a group of lawmakers repeatedly cited the findings of the ethics report, Mr. Santos and his defenders argued that removing him before his criminal case is resolved could open the floodgates to a raft of frivolous expulsion efforts, overriding the will of voters.
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