George Santos waves to reporters and protestors as he leaves the federal court in Central Islip on Oct. 27.
Michael Malaszczyk/Long Island Press
By George, Santos is gone.
The freshman Queens/Long Island Republican Congress member, who made national headlines when the New York Times revealed that he had fabricated most of his resume while running for election to the House of Representatives, was expelled from Congress Friday morning.
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) announced the result at 11 a.m., with 311 members voting in favor — 206 Democrats and 104 Republicans. The expulsion vote required 290 members, or a two-thirds majority, to take effect.
“The clerk will notify the governor of State of New York of the action of the House,” a somber Johnson announced immediately after the vote. “Under clause 5D of Rule 20, the chair announces to the House that in light of the expulsion of the gentleman from New York, Mr. Santos, the whole number of the house is now 434.”
Santos is only the sixth individual in American history to be expelled, and the first in modern history without a criminal conviction at the time of his expulsion.
After soundly losing to former Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-Glen Cove) in the 2020 general election, Santos made another run for New York’s Third Congressional District seat in 2022. He caught a break when Suozzi opted not to run for re-election and instead challenged Gov. Kathy Hochul in the Democratic primary, a bid he ultimately lost.
That left only Democrat Robert Zimmerman standing in Santos’ way of claiming the 3rd District seat. Santos defeated Zimmerman last November in a midterm election powered by strong turnout of Republicans on Long Island.
But then in December, The New York Times broke the story asserting that key details of Santos’s background he had used on the campaign trail — his education, employment history, ethnic background, connections to the 2016 Pulse Nightclub shooting, and more…
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