On Friday (1st December), US lawmakers voted to expel George Santos. George Santos is the sixth person in the history of the United States of America to have been removed from his colleagues. Santos is a Republican from New York who was elected in 2022.
The vote to expel Santos came after the House Ethics Committee found that he had “engaged in conduct that constitutes a breach of trust and reflects discredit upon the House.” The committee found that Santos had lied about his education, work experience, and financial status.
The final vote count was 311-114, with 105 Republicans voting in favour of expulsion and 112 voting against it. All but eight Democrats voted in favour of expulsion. The resolution to expel Santos required a two-thirds majority, or 290 votes, to pass. The resolution passed easily, with 21 votes to spare.
George Santos’s meteoric rise and fall in the political arena is a story of deception, scandal, and ultimately, expulsion from Congress. His fabricated backstory, which included embellishments about his education, work experience, and personal life, initially propelled him to victory in the 2022 House elections, helping the Republicans secure a narrow majority. However, his elaborate web of lies began to unravel, exposing a pattern of financial impropriety and personal misconduct.
The unmasking of Santos’s true character led to a flurry of investigations, culminating in a damning report by the House Ethics Committee. The committee concluded that Santos had engaged in “overwhelming evidence” of misconduct, including knowingly filing false or incomplete financial disclosures, using campaign funds for personal purposes, and engaging in “a scheme to fraudulently exploit every aspect of his House candidacy.”
In a decisive vote, the House of Representatives expelled Santos from Congress, marking only the sixth time in American history that a member has been ejected by their colleagues. Santos, who vehemently refuted the criminal charges against him, is accused of utilising funds from donors for purposes such as Botox treatments, subscriptions to the OnlyFans adult content platform, as well as indulging in extravagant Italian luxury items and vacationing in the Hamptons and Las Vegas, as per the ethics committee’s findings.
In India, TMC MP Mahua Moitra is also accused of taking bribes in cash and kind from businessman Darshan Hiranandani for asking questions in the parliament against Gautam Adani. A probe from the Ethics Committee of the Indian Parliament is also going on in this case. If found guilty, Mahua Moitra may face a similar action from the house.
