{"id":574975,"date":"2023-05-18T00:39:35","date_gmt":"2023-05-17T21:39:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/house-votes-to-send-santos-expulsion-resolution-to-ethics-committee\/"},"modified":"2023-05-18T00:39:35","modified_gmt":"2023-05-17T21:39:35","slug":"house-votes-to-send-santos-expulsion-resolution-to-ethics-committee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/house-votes-to-send-santos-expulsion-resolution-to-ethics-committee\/","title":{"rendered":"#House votes to send Santos expulsion resolution to Ethics Committee"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2023\/05\/santosgeorge_042723gn06_w.jpg?w=900\" \/><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>The House on Wednesday punted the question of whether Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) should be removed from Congress, referring an expulsion resolution to the Ethics Committee and shielding Republican lawmakers from having to weigh in on the matter directly.<\/p>\n<p>The chamber voted 221-204-7 to send the resolution to the Ethics panel, a largely redundant move since the committee has been investigating Santos since March amid mounting questions about his background and finances. The panel is looking into whether he engaged in unlawful activity during his 2022 campaign and failed to properly disclose information to the House, among other areas of inquiry.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"ad-unit ad-unit--mr1_ab\"><\/aside>\n<p>All five Democrats on the Ethics Committee \u2014 Susan Wild (Pa.), Glenn Ivey (Md.), Veronica Escobar (Texas), Deborah Ross (N.C.), Mark DeSaulnier (Calif.) \u2014 voted present, as did Reps. Chrissy Houlahan (D-Pa.), Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-Wash.). The remaining votes fell along party lines.<\/p>\n<p>Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) introduced the expulsion resolution in February, but called the measure to the floor as a privileged resolution on Tuesday \u2014\u00a0nearly one week after Santos was indicted on federal charges \u2014\u00a0a move that forced Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) to take action on the measure within two legislative days.<\/p>\n<p>McCarthy ultimately chose to hold a vote on referring the resolution to the Ethics Committee for consideration, which required a simple majority vote. He could have moved to table the measure, which would also require support from half the chamber, or bring the expulsion resolution to the floor for a vote, which would need a two-thirds majority for <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/download-scripts-themes-apps\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"9\" title=\"Download Scripts &amp; Themes &amp; Apps\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">app<\/a>roval.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think the George Santos indictment is very serious,\u201d McCarthy told reporters on Tuesday. \u201cI also know in America you\u2019re innocent till proven guilty. But I don\u2019t want to sit around and wait. So what I would like to do is move this to Ethics.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He said he wanted the Ethics panel to examine the matter \u201cquickly.\u201d McCarthy has notably stopped short of calling on Santos to resign or be expelled, instead underscoring the need to let the legal process play out. The New York Republican has been a crucial vote in the GOP conference\u2019s narrow majority, helping McCarthy deliver legislative wins.<\/p>\n<p>Democrats, however, panned McCarthy\u2019s decision as a \u201ccop out\u201d because the Ethics panel is already looking into Santos.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"ad-unit ad-unit--mr2_ab\"><\/aside>\n<p>\u201cIt is a complete cop out to have a redundant motion to refer a resolution to an Ethics Committee that is already investigating this,\u201d said Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.), who filed an ethics complaint against Santos earlier this year.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe should not refer this matter to the Ethics Committee, this resolution is already there,\u201d Garcia said on Wednesday. \u201cNow every Republican should stand up and join us to defend this body and expel George Santos.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But McCarthy\u2019s decision to refer the resolution to the Ethics committee rather than bring it to the floor provided an off-ramp of sorts for some Republicans \u2014 especially those in the New York delegation \u2014\u00a0allowing them to vote with the party without supporting Santos\u2019s tenure in the House.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"ad-unit ad-unit--mr3_ab\"><\/aside>\n<p>Reps. Anthony D\u2019Esposito (R-N.Y.), Marc Molinaro (R-N.Y.) and Nick LaLota (R-N.Y.) announced earlier this year that they supported expulsion for the New York Republican, and Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas) joined the ranks following Santos\u2019s arraignments last week.<\/p>\n<p>All four voted on Wednesday to refer the matter to the Ethics panel.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI will vote to begin the process of removing George Santos from this sacred institution by formally referring his case to the House Ethics Committee,\u201d Molinaro, an expulsion proponent, said in a statement shortly before the vote. \u201cGeorge Santos should not be a Member of Congress. He has irrevocably lost the trust of his constituents and colleagues. I expect the Ethics Committee to conduct an im<a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/social-mediaa\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"1\" title=\"Social Media\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">media<\/a>te and swift review.\u201d<\/p>\n<aside class=\"ad-unit ad-unit--mr4_ab\"><\/aside>\n<p>Other New York Republicans \u2014 like Rep. Mike Lawler, who has called for Santos to resign but not be expelled \u2014\u00a0defended the process of shifting the matter to the Ethics Committee, noting that similar indictment cases in modern memory have not resulted in an immediate expulsion.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCan any of you point to a single case where somebody\u2019s been expelled from Congress without a conviction or a referral [from the Ethics Committee]?\u201d he asked, which was followed by silence. \u201cRight. So if the standard now is: A member of Congress lies \u2014 and by the way, he\u2019s done a lot of lying \u2014 but if that\u2019s the standard then there\u2019s a lot of members that are gonna be expelled pretty quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Only five House members have ever been expelled, three of them in 1861. Most recently, former Rep. James Traficant (D-Ohio) was expelled in 2002 after being convicted of 10 federal charges, including bribery and racketeering.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"ad-unit ad-unit--mr5_ab\"><\/aside>\n<p>Beyond political considerations, Lawler noted a practical reason for the GOP\u2019s referral strategy: they simply lack the votes to oust Santos outright. That feat would require support from two-thirds of the chamber.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe bottom line here is this: There\u2019s not the votes to expel him,\u201d Lawler said. \u201cYou need two-thirds to expel him. So rather than vote \u2018no\u2019 or vote to table it, we\u2019re referring it to Ethics so that the Ethics Committee can come back, expeditiously, with an actual referral, so that members of Congress can vote him out. It\u2019s pretty straightforward. There\u2019s a process here. The Democrats are choosing, for political purposes, to circumvent that process.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Santos has been the target of controversy since before he was sworn into the House, when The New York Times published a bombshell report highlighting questionable aspects of his background. He later admitted to \u201cembellishing\u201d his resume.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"ad-unit ad-unit--mr6_ab\"><\/aside>\n<p>That scrutiny hit a fever pitch last week, when prosecutors indicted Santos on 13 federal charges, including wire fraud, money laundering, theft of public funds and making materially false statements to the House of Representatives. He is accused of deceiving campaign donors, fraudulently receiving COVID-19 unemployment benefits and including false information on his financial disclosure forms.<\/p>\n<p>The congressman pleaded guilty and has said he does not plan to resign.<\/p>\n<p>Also last week, Santos signed an agreement with public prosecutors in Brazil to avoid being prosecuted in a case related to an incident from 2008.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"ad-unit ad-unit--mr7_ab\"><\/aside>\n<p><em>Mike Lillis contributed.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Copyright 2023 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\">If you liked the article, do not forget to share it with your friends. Follow us on\u00a0<span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><a style=\"color: #ff0000;\" href=\"https:\/\/news.google.com\/publications\/CAAqBwgKMLG0nwswvr63Aw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">Google News<\/a><\/span>\u00a0too, click on the star and choose us from your favorites.<\/span><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">For forums sites go to <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/forum.buradabiliyorum.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Forum.BuradaBiliyorum.Com<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>If you want to read more <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/news\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"2\" title=\"News\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">News<\/a> articles, you can visit our <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/news\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">News category.<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"color: black;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/homenews\/house\/4009434-house-votes-to-send-santos-expulsion-resolution-to-ethics-committee\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The House on Wednesday punted the question of whether Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) should be removed from Congress, referring an expulsion resolution to the Ethics Committee and shielding Republican lawmakers from having to weigh in on the matter directly. The chamber voted 221-204-7 to send the resolution to the Ethics panel, a largely redundant move&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":574976,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thehill.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2023\/05\/santosgeorge_042723gn06_w.jpg?w=1280","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[70897],"tags":[139529,10574,134661,137726,90482,133498,35813,134345,4965],"class_list":["post-574975","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-defense-national-security","tag-education","tag-energy-environment","tag-george-santos","tag-house","tag-in-the-know","tag-kevin-mccarthy","tag-state-watch","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574975","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=574975"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574975\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/574976"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=574975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=574975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=574975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}