Speaker Kevin McCarthy has said that scandal-plagued New York Republican Representative George Santos is expected to face an investigation by the House Ethics Committee.
Mr McCarthy said that the House will take measures in accordance with the findings of the possible probe, CNN reported.
The speaker initially said “yes” to CNN when asked on Tuesday if Mr Santos was under investigation, but later added that he was simply the subject of complaints made to the ethics committee.
The speaker was asked about Mr Santos’s constituents asking him to resign.
“Ethics is moving through, and if ethics finds something, we’ll take action. Right now we’re not allowing him to be on committees from the standpoint of the questions that have arisen,” Mr McCarthy said earlier on Tuesday.
Mr Santos told CNN he’s “not concerned” by an ethics probe. He told reporters that he was looking forward to welcoming residents from his district who travelled to Capitol Hill to call on him to resign.
“You’re saying that the freedom of speech of my constituents is a distraction to my work?” Mr Santos asked. “Do you think people are a distraction to the work I’m doing here?”
Fellow New York Republican freshman Representative Marc Molinaro represents the state’s 19th district since earlier this year.
“As I’ve said consistently, I think he ought to resign and really take stock of himself and start being honest, not only with the people he serves but with himself,” he told CNN on Tuesday.
Former New York Representative Lee Zeldin, the 2022 GOP nominee for governor in the state, is starting a new federal fundraising political action committee, leaving out the treasurer also employed by Mr Santos.
“We will be announcing a new federal PAC that is being stood up right now utilizing a different treasurer,” Mr Zeldin said on Monday, according to Politico.
Mr Zeldin appeared to want to put some distance between himself and Mr Santos and the treasurer, Nancy Marks.
“The treasurer has something like close to 200 different accounts,” he said.
Regarding Mr Santos, Mr Zeldin said, “I don’t see how he is possibly going to regain the trust of his constituents”.
But he declined to say he should resign.
“Whatever his expiration date is as a member of the House, I don’t have that answer. He is seated,” he said.
“There are many investigations going on. Different levels of government, FEC, House Ethics Committee, an international investigation apparently going on as well. I don’t know whether or not he’s going to stay there for the remainder of his term,” he said.
