Expelled congressman George Santos is reportedly selling video messages on Cameo for $150 to $200.
The 35-year-old disgraced lawmaker - who became the sixth person in US history to be expelled from the congressional chamber - has been dipping his toes into new revenue streams. In a strange twist of events, he has turned to making videos for Cameo, a website where people commission celebrities and public figures to record personalised messages.
Santos wrote in his bio: “Former congressional ‘Icon’!” and added that he’s “The Expelled member of Congress from New York City”.
Initially, the former congressman was selling everything from birthday wishes to pep talks to roasts for a reported $75, before changing the price to $150 mere hours after launching his Cameo profile. As of now, the videos are being sold for $200, with the profile noting that there are “only 125 videos left”. He has linked the account in his bio on X, formerly known as Twitter.
The Independent has contacted Santos’ representation for comment.
Last week, the House of Representatives held a vote on a resolution to expel the embattled Santos, during which more than a hundred Republicans joined almost all Democrats in voting to remove him from the chamber. More than 300 of his fellow representatives voted to expel him from the congressional chambers.
Throughout his first year in office, Santos battled calls for his resignation after revelations of his lies and fraudulent actions were exposed shortly after he was elected.
Santos fabricated the majority of his identity and resume, which led the Justice Department to ultimately indict him in May of this year with an estimated two dozen federal charges, including allegations such as stealing from campaign donors as well as using campaign contributions for personal expenses, and unemployment benefit collection fraud among others.
In a separate report from the House Ethics Committee released in November, lawmakers reportedly collected “overwhelming evidence” that the embattled congressman violated federal law. They alleged that he “sought to fraudulently exploit every aspect of his House candidacy for his own personal financial profit”.
Although Santos had survived two previous expulsion attempts, the third vote posed a bigger threat than any of the other charges he’d faced before. Now that he has been expelled, Santos wouldn’t be barred from running for Congress again. According to a report from the Congressional Review Service, expulsion from Congress doesn’t have any additional penalties beyond removal.
Santos dispelled any rumours of him planning to run for office again when he told reporters that after his expulsion he was done with Congress. Outside of the US Capitol, he said, “Why would I want to stay here? To hell with this place.”
In a Friday tirade on X, Santos ranted that he was wondering who had the “testicular fortitude” to expel New York Democrat Jamaal Bowman, who pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor and paid a fine for setting off a fire alarm in a congressional office building.
He also wrote that he planned on filing an ethics complaint against representatives Mike Lawler, Nicole Malliotakis, and Nick LaLota – three fellow New York conservatives who pushed for his expulsion. He added that he would file a separate complaint against the representative Rob Menendez - the son of embattled New Jersey senator Bob Menendez, who was criminally charged with acting as an unregistered foreign agent on behalf of Egypt.
Santos didn’t provide any evidence of the lawmaker’s wrongdoing.
