On Friday, Dec. 3, Congressman George Santos, who represented the 3rd congressional district of New York, was expelled from Congress after two-thirds of the House voted in favor of the motion. The vote was called as a result of a House Ethics Committee report, led by Republican Representative Michael Guest, which found substantial evidence that Santos had misused campaign funds as well as committed federal crimes. Santos is now the sixth member of the House to be expelled from Congress.
Santos has been charged with 23 felonies as a result of his involvement in misusing campaign funds, specifically for his own gain. Santos has remained adamant he is not guilty of any of these counts. Santos has been charged with stealing from donors repeatedly by taking campaign funds and transferring them into his accounts.
The House Ethics Committee report found that Santos had violated both criminal laws as well as House ethics rules. The report highlighted how Santos utilized his candidacy as an opportunity for personal profit. Santos had allegedly used two different tactics to funnel campaign donations into his pocket. The first was using Redstone Strategies, a company that the Congressman used as a way to transfer money from his campaign to his accounts in the company; Santos then had control over where it went and what it was spent on. According to the ethics report, Santos was able to pocket around $200,000 of campaign funds by transferring them to his Redstone Strategies accounts.
Santos is currently facing charges for using Redstone Strategies. According to prosecutors, Santos transferred $50,000 to his accounts in Redstone with a promise the money would be spent on ads for his campaign; but rather it was used for purchases of designer items and other personal payments.
The second mechanism Santos utilized to personally gain from campaign donations was by lying about the amount of money he was loaning his campaign. For instance, in 2020 Santos reported that he had loaned more than $80,000 to his campaign, but he had only loaned the campaign about $3,500. By making his campaign seem more successful than it was, Santos attracted more donors, more support and more money for himself to use.
The report also alleges that Santos used campaign funds to pay his rent and for various trips to Atlantic City, New Jersey. The report also included suspicious expenditures utilizing more than $10,000 of his campaign funds at Hermés and Ferragamo, as well as $1,400 at a spa specializing in botox treatments. It was also discovered that smaller payments to Onlyfans had been made despite Santos stating he had only just recently learned what the website was. Santos had also spent around $4,000 on purchases at Sephora with money from campaign funds and donors.
Santos vehemently denies the charges against him and the claims in the ethics report. However, according to the report, Santos himself reviewed finance reports weekly as well as approved the invoices for his campaign and the campaign funds. Santos has admitted to falsifying his resume and lying in the past, but claims he has never committed any crimes.
