Wisconsin Reps. Steil, Grothman join Democrats in bipartisan vote to expel disgraced George Santos

WASHINGTON – Wisconsin’s House members were divided Friday as the chamber voted to expel embattled New York Republican Rep. George Santos, a first-term lawmaker accused of theft and fraud who has admitted to fabricating much of his personal and professional life.

Four Wisconsin Republicans voted against removing Santos, largely noting the freshman lawmaker has not yet been convicted on any of the 23 federal felony charges he faces. But the chamber ultimately expelled him on a 311-114 vote, reaching the necessary two-thirds majority threshold to remove a member. One hundred and five Republicans backed the expulsion resolution, along with 206 Democrats.

Wisconsin Republican Reps. Bryan Steil and Glenn Grothman voted with Democratic Reps. Mark Pocan and Gwen Moore to remove Santos from office.

"I think it was the most important thing to do," Grothman, who originally voted against expulsion but switched his vote after talking to other New York Republicans, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

“This guy’s been a fraud, a conman, a huckster from Day One,” Pocan said before the vote. “Quite honestly, we should have got rid of him right away.”

Santos' expulsion comes two weeks after the House Ethics Committee concluded that Santos stole from his campaign and filed false or incomplete campaign finance reports. Santos used campaign funds, the committee said in its 56-page report, for personal expenses like luxury items, Botox treatments and purchases on the adult content website OnlyFans, among other things.

“At nearly every opportunity, he placed his desire for private gain above his duty to uphold the Constitution, federal law, and ethical principles,” the committee wrote, adding that its investigation “revealed a complex web of unlawful activity involving Representative Santos’ campaign, personal, and business finances.”

Ethics Committee Chair Michael Guest, a Mississippi Republican, introduced the resolution to expel Santos shortly before lawmakers left Washington for Thanksgiving break.

Prosecutors in the Eastern District of New York charged Santos in May with wire fraud, money laundering, theft of public records and lying to the House of Representatives in connection with his campaign activity. He was hit with a superseding indictment in October alleging, in part, Santos stole people’s identities and made unauthorized charges on donor credit cards.

Friday’s successful vote was the third and final attempt to expel Santos from the House. In early November, the chamber rejected a measure to expel Santos on a 179-213 vote. Pocan was the only Wisconsin House member to vote to expel Santos at the time.

The release of the ethics report in mid-November, however, proved consequential as more members from both sides of the aisle lined up behind the push for Santos’ removal.

Moore, a Democrat from Milwaukee who rejected previous efforts to expel Santos because the ethics report had not been released, said the report gave lawmakers “something other than idle gossip” to consider. The report’s unanimous passage out of the committee, she suggested, was another factor in her change of heart.

“He’s an embarrassment to the institution,” Moore told the Journal Sentinel this week, before she voted to remove Santos. “I like to think that, you know, just because they call us honorable, we should be honorable. There’s nothing honorable about him.”

Steil, a Republican from Janesville, after the vote said members of Congress "must be held to a higher standard. He added: "I agreed with the unanimous findings of the Ethics Committee which proved former Congressman George Santos' actions deem him unfit to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives."

Pocan in a brief interview earlier this week noted removing Santos would diminish Republicans’ already narrow majority in the House. With the ethics report now public, Pocan said, “there’s really no more excuses anyone can make that you need his vote.”

Santos’ victory last year in New York’s 3rd Congressional District played an important role in helping Republicans regain control of the House. But reelection appeared difficult for the man who has lied about everything from his work and educational history to his religion, and he said last month he would not seek reelection. The Cook Political Report rates the seat “lean Democrat” in 2024.

Santos, for his part, has denied wrongdoing and remained defiant. During a lengthy discussion on X Spaces last week, he said we would carry his expulsion “like a badge of honor” and noted he would be the only member to be expelled without a conviction in court. He refused to resign before the expulsion resolution made it to the floor.

At a press conference outside the Capitol Thursday morning, Santos called the ethics report “slanderous” and “littered in hyperbole.” He later introduced a motion to expel New York Democratic Rep. Jamal Bowman for pulling a fire alarm without cause during government shutdown talks in September.

“I’m fighting to defend myself and to dispel each and every accusation as soon as I have the opportunity,” Santos told reporters.

Guest, the Republican Ethics Committee chair, on the House floor Thursday afternoon pushed back on those claims and rejected arguments from some Republicans that Santos had been given due process.

He argued Santos had adequate notice of the investigation, was given the opportunity to present his case but declined to fully cooperate with committee investigators and received an impartial evaluation by a group of his peers.

And Santos’ fellow New York Republican Nick LaLota, who has been among his most outspoken critics, railed against Santos for falsely claiming he was Jewish — Santos later said he was “Jew-ish” — and that his mother died in the 9/11 terrorist attacks, among other proven lies.

Grothman, a Republican from Glenbeulah, told the Journal Sentinel two days before the vote that he thinks Santos is guilty of a crime but suggested he’d like to wait for Santos’ trial to conclude before such a vote. He originally voted against expulsion Friday before changing his vote, telling the Journal Sentinel he spoke with members of the New York delegation. The ethics committee report also played a role in his changed vote, he said.

Santos is the sixth member of the House to be expelled in the country’s history. Twenty senators have also been expelled, according to the Congressional Research Service, and the last member of Congress to be expelled was Ohio Rep. Jim Traficant in 2002. Traficant had been convicted of bribery, racketeering and tax evasion.

Many of the Republicans who opposed the expulsion resolution this week chose not to defend Santos’ character but rather raised concerns about the precedent an expulsion without a criminal conviction could set. Some pointed to other embattled members, like New Jersey Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez, who is facing bribery charges and has similarly rejected his colleagues’ calls for his resignation.

“Whatever Mr. Santos did with Botox or OnlyFans is far less concerning to me than the indictment against Sen. Menendez, who’s holding gold bars inscribed with Arabic on them from Egypt while he is still getting classified briefings today,” Florida Republican Matt Gaetz said.

“If George Santos is convicted, he ought to be expelled,” Gaetz added. “But until then, it is an incredibly dangerous thing for people in Washington, D.C., to substitute their judgment for the judgment of voters.”

Wisconsin Republicans made similar arguments. Reps. Scott Fitzgerald, Mike Gallagher Tom Tiffany and Derrick Van Orden voted against expulsion.

Van Orden, a freshman lawmaker in western Wisconsin, called the ethics report on Santos’ alleged conduct “disturbing,” specifically pointing to allegations that Santos falsely reported hundreds of thousands of dollars in personal loans — loans the ethics committee labeled “fictitious.” But he noted Santos has been charged and not yet convicted.

“If in fact this is all true and he gets convicted of these things, of course he should be expelled,” Van Orden told the Journal Sentinel. “But where do you draw that line?”

“The thing that concerns me is: Has he been convicted of a crime?” Tiffany, who represents the state’s 7th congressional district, told the Journal Sentinel Thursday. “I think it’s a really serious matter to expel somebody from the House. So I don’t think we should take that lightly.”

Both Fitzgerald and Gallagher after the vote suggested they found the ethics report on Santos concerning. But both men similarly cited his lack of conviction as a reason for their opposition to the expulsion.

"By continually breaking precedents, this Congress is opening up a pandora's box of perpetual expulsions and chaos," Gallagher said. "On the current path, Congress is devolving into a green room for cable news shows and social media stardom."

The House chamber was quiet in the moments after the House clerk announced Santos' expulsion late Friday morning.

Santos appeared to have already left the chamber.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Steil, Grothman join Democrats in vote to expel George Santos