House Ethics Committee opens inquiry into George Santos
The House Ethics Committee announced Thursday that it had opened a broad investigation into Rep. George Santos, the embattled Republican from New York under scrutiny for lies about his background and questions about his campaign finances.
The inquiry will cover several areas where Santos has been accused of misconduct in formal complaints — including one filed by two of his House colleagues.
The committee’s top-ranking Republican and Democratic members said in a statement that they would seek to determine whether Santos had failed to properly fill out his House financial disclosure forms, violated federal conflict of interest laws or engaged in other unlawful activity during his 2022 congressional campaign.
The committee will also examine an allegation of sexual misconduct from a prospective congressional aide who briefly worked in Santos’ office.
Santos said on Twitter that he was “fully cooperating” with the committee’s investigation and would not comment further.
The Ethics Committee is not known for aggressively pursuing inquiries. Critics often argue that the body moves too slowly and has few options to punish lawmakers for misdeeds. Although scores of representatives supported an inquiry into Santos, it took two months for the committee to start one.
Sitting representatives are also disinclined to penalize their colleagues. Though the committee can in rare instances recommend a representative be removed from office, it largely hands out fines or issue rebukes. Its principal tool is to release reports that may create pressure for action by the entire House against sitting members of Congress.
The committee’s investigation nonetheless adds to the mounting legal and political pressure that Santos has faced in the wake of reporting by The New York Times that revealed he had fabricated much of his life story. Subsequent reporting showed serious irregularities in his campaign finances, including $365,000 in unexplained spend
ing.
Federal and local prosecutors are investigating whether Santos committed any crimes involving his lies about his background, an animal-rescue charity he ran and his finances. The Federal Election Commission has been examining irregularities in his campaign fundraising and spending, and prosecutors in Brazil revived fraud charges against Santos tied to an incident in 2008 involving a stolen checkbook.
House Speaker Kevin Mccarthy has for months pinned Santos’ fate in Congress on the Ethics Committee’s findings.
Among Santos’ harshest critics in Congress are fellow first-term Republican lawmakers from New York. In a statement on Thursday, Rep. Mike Lawler, who represents part of the Hudson Valley, said he welcomed a “swift and thorough” review from the Ethics Committee, which he said was “long overdue.”
Rep. Nick Lalota, a Republican who represents a neighboring district on Long Island, said on Twitter Wednesday night that Santos was “a terrible person and should be thrown out” of Congress as soon as possible.
Thus far, Santos has faced little consequence in Congress besides being ostracized by many Republicans, though last month, he temporarily removed himself from two congressional committees at the direction of House leadership.
The Ethics Committee’s inquiry began Tuesday when the 10-member body, split evenly between Republicans and Democrats, voted unanimously to create an investigative subcommittee to scrutinize Santos.
According to his candidate disclosures, Santos went from earning $55,000 to more than $750,000, plus dividends of more than $1 million, during the time he was running for office. Most of this wealth came from his company, the Devolder Organization, according to disclosures.
Santos has said that he made his money by helping “high net-worth individuals” make deals, citing sales of yachts and planes.
“If you’re looking at a $20 million yacht, my referral fee there can be anywhere between $200,000 and $400,000,” he told the outlet Semafor in December.
But Santos failed to identify any of his clients on candidate disclosure forms, a seeming violation of the rule meant to guard against conflicts of interest that requires candidates to disclose anytime a single source pays them more than $5,000.
The Times also identified numerous irregularities in the way his campaign raised and spent money, including rental payments to a house Santos was known to have stayed at, and the existence of a fund called Redstone Strategies that hit up donors for tens of thousands of dollars and shared an address with his campaign and business.
Last month, Derek Myers, a prospective congressional aide who said he worked briefly in Santos’ office before his job offer was rescinded, also asked the committee to investigate whether Santos committed ethical violations, and he accused the congressman of sexual harassment.
Myers, whose account could not be corroborated, said in a statement that he would disclose more evidence to the committee if he was called upon to do so, adding, “I have faith in the evidence and the facts.”