House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) said he’d move to refer the expulsion of Rep. George Santos (R-NY) to the House Ethics Committee when it comes up for a vote later this week, indicating such a move would be faster than waiting for court proceedings to conclude.
Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA) introduced a privileged resolution to expel the freshman lawmaker on Tuesday afternoon, triggering a procedural vote that would require lawmakers to take some sort of action on the proposal in the next two days. McCarthy declined to say whether he’d support such a move, noting he would like to refer the matter to the Ethics Committee before bringing the expulsion resolution to the floor for a vote.
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“I think these accusations are very serious,” McCarthy told reporters on Tuesday. “What I do firmly believe is just in the foundation of this country: We have got to have a process. So I'm going to ask that Ethics look at this.”
In doing so, McCarthy said he’d urge lawmakers on the Ethics Committee to expedite their work in a bipartisan fashion. It’s not yet clear how many Democrats would support referring the matter to the committee, but McCarthy said he’d speak with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) about it this week.
The move to expel Santos comes after the New York Republican was indicted by the Justice Department last week on 13 counts of wire fraud, money laundering, theft of public funds, and lying to Congress. Santos has pleaded not guilty to the charges and has denounced the allegations as being politically motivated.
Santos was released on a $500,000 bond last week and is scheduled to reappear in court on June 30. However, McCarthy made clear he would not wait for court proceedings to play out before taking congressional action.
“He's gotten indicted, but he still has the process,” McCarthy said. “I don't want to wait around for the courts to act. What I would like to do is have the House take action and have a process here.”
The House is set to vote on the privileged resolution this week, forcing Republicans to follow through with threats to punish Santos for his alleged misconduct or to defend their slim majority.
“George Santos is a fraud and a liar, and he needs to be expelled by the House,” Garcia said in a statement. “News that the federal prosecutors are filing 13 criminal charges against George Santos should have been the final straw for Kevin McCarthy, but he refuses to act. Republicans now have a chance to demonstrate to Americans that an admitted criminal should not serve in the House of Representatives.”
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House Republicans can vote to either table the bill or refer it to a committee, which would require only a simple majority to pass. In order to do that, Republicans can only afford to lose four votes.
However, it would require a two-thirds majority vote to pass the resolution, which could be harder for Democrats to obtain in the next two days.