George Santos, the disgraced New York Republican who was expelled from the US House on Friday, spent his first hours as a former congressman railing against his former colleagues and saying he would file ethics complaints against four of them on Monday.
Santos told reporters after his expulsion he was done with Congress.
“Why would I want to stay here? To hell with this place,” he told reporters outside the US Capitol after the vote.
By Friday evening, he was tweeting about his colleagues. He wrote on X that he would file an ethics complaint against three fellow Republicans from New York – Mike Lawler, Nicole Malliotakis and Nick LaLota – who had long pushed to oust him from Congress. He offered no proof of wrongdoing against any of the three.
He also wrote that he would file a complaint against the representative Rob Menendez, whose father, the New Jersey senator Bob Menendez, has been criminally charged with acting as an unregistered foreign agent on behalf of Egypt. Santos, again, didn’t offer specific accusations of wrongdoing.
Any person can file a complaint with the Office of Congressional Ethics, but that does not mean it will result in an investigation.
Santos also urged a Republican in Congress to have the “testicular fortitude” to move to expel Jamaal Bowman, a New York Democrat, who pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor and paid a fine for setting off a fire alarm in a congressional office building.
Let’s see who will be the Republican that will have the testicular fortitude to pick up my privileged motion to expel Bowman and reintroduce it! #ExpelBowman
— George Santos (@MrSantosNY) December 2, 2023
Santos spent the week leading up to his impeachment vote railing against colleagues, accusing them of having affairs and missing votes because they were hungover.
Santos became just the sixth person ever to be expelled from Congress after a bipartisan 311-114 vote on Friday. His expulsion came shortly after a report from the House ethics committee detailed how he had spent campaign funds on luxury goods, cosmetics and an OnlyFans subscription. He also has pleaded not guilty to a 23-count federal indictment related to his use of campaign funds.
After being elected to Congress to represent Long Island and Queens last year, Santos quickly earned a reputation as a prolific liar. Among other things, he lied about working on Wall Street, that his mother died during 9/11, and that he was a volleyball star in college.
