George Santos expelled from House over criminal charges and damning ethics report
Republican congressman George Santos has been expelled from the House of Representatives after a report found “overwhelming evidence” he misused campaign donations.
Mr Santos was ousted 311-114 in a bipartisan vote – only the sixth time a member has been kicked out of the House since it was founded in 1789.
Two-thirds of members must support the move – but an excoriating report by the House ethics committee that accused him of breaking federal law appeared to seal his fate.
The 35-year-old led his own defence on the floor of the House and said he would “not stand by quietly”.
Speaking the evening before the vote, he said: “The people of the Third District of New York sent me here. If they want me out, you’re going to have to go silence those people and go take the hard vote.”
Mr Santos argued it would set a precedent that would make expulsions more common.
Three previous cases involved disloyalty to the Union during the American Civil War, the remaining two were after politicians were convicted of federal crimes.
A congressional investigation found he charged his campaign account nearly $4,000 (£3,151) for spa treatments, including
Botox.
He also spent more than $4,000 at designer store Hermes and made “smaller purchases” from the OnlyFans site – best known for sexual content.
Protesters had been calling for Mr Santos to be expelled
As the outcome of Friday’s vote became clear, Mr Santos put his coat over his shoulders, shook hands with some members who voted against his expulsion and exited the chamber.
The House Speaker solemnly instructed a clerk to inform New York’s governor that his seat was now vacant.
Mr Santos was in his first term and had been previously feted as an exciting prospect after he flipped a district from the Democrats in November 2022.
But the committee launched a probe in March after reports he lied about having Jewish ancestry and his grandparents fleeing the Nazis, working at elite investment bank Goldman Sachs, and his college degree.
It lasted eight months and found “overwhelming evidence” of law-breaking – and Mr Santos has now admitted making up much of his biography.
Minority leader Hakeem Jeffries was one of many supporting the expulsion. Pic: AP
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The US attorney’s office indicted him in May, accusing him of cheating donors, laundering campaign funds for his own personal use, and lying to Congress.
It alleged he stole donors’ identities and used their credit cards to make tens of thousands in authorised charges.
Mr Santos has pleaded not guilty to the charges and his trial is scheduled for September 2024.
“Mr Santos is not a victim. He is a perpetrator of a massive fraud on his constituents and the American people,” said Susan Wild, the top Democrat on the ethics committee.
The last person to be kicked out of the House was Democrat James Traficant over a criminal corruption conviction in 2002.
New York state governor Kathy Hochul now has 10 days to call a special election for Mr Santos’s seat.
Fears of a US-EU trade war have been reignited after Europe refused to back down in the face of fresh threats from Donald Trump.
The word tariff has dominated much of the US president’s second term, and he has repeatedly and freely threatened countries with them.
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This included the so-called “liberation day” last month, where he unleashed tariffs on many of his trade partners.
On Friday, after a period of relative calm which has included striking a deal with the UK, he threatened to impose a 50% tariff on the EU after claiming trade talks with Brussels were “going nowhere”.
The US president has repeatedly taken issue with the EU, going as far as to claim it was created to rip the US off.
However, in the face of the latest hostile rhetoric from Mr Trump’s social media account, the European Commission – which oversees trade for the 27-country bloc – has refused to back down.
EU trade chief Maros Sefcovic said: “EU-US trade is unmatched and must be guided by mutual respect, not threats.
“We stand ready to defend our interests.”
Donald Trump speaks to reporters in the Oval Office on Friday
Fellow EU leaders and ministers have also held the line after Mr Trump’s comments.
Polish deputy economy minister Michal Baranowski said the tariffs appeared to be a negotiating ploy, with Dutch deputy prime minister Dick Schoof said tariffs “can go up and down”.
French trade minister Laurent Saint-Martin said the latest threats did nothing to help trade talks.
He stressed “de-escalation” was one of the EU’s main aims but warned: “We are ready to respond.”
Mr Sefcovic spoke with US trade representative Jamieson Greer and commerce secretary Howard Lutnick after Mr Trump’s comments.
Mr Trump has previously backed down on a tit-for-tat trade war with China, which saw tariffs soar above 100%.
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Sticking points
Talks between the US and EU have stumbled.
In the past week, Washington sent a list of demands to Brussels – including adopting US food safety standards and removing national digital services taxes, people familiar with the talks told Reuters news agency.
In response, the EU reportedly offered a mutually beneficial deal that could include the bloc potentially buying more liquefied natural gas and soybeans from the US, as well as cooperation on issues such as steel overcapacity, which both sides blame on China.
Stocks tumble as Trump grumbles
Major stock indices tumbled after Mr Trump’s comments, which came as he also threatened to slap US tech giant Apple with a 25% tariff.
The president is adamant that he wants the company’s iPhones to be built in America.
The vast majority of its phones are made in China, and the company has also shifted some production to India.
Shares of Apple ended 3% lower and the dollar sank 1% versus the Japanese yen and the euro rose 0.8% against the dollar.
In the dozens of framed images and newspaper clippings covering the walls of his office in downtown New York City, Al Sharpton is pictured alongside presidents and leading protests.
He has spent decades campaigning and is perhaps the most famous civil rights activist in the US today.
Many of those clippings on the wall relate to one moment in May 2020 – the murder of George Floyd.
George Floyd was killed while under arrest in Minneapolis in May 2020
Speaking to Sky News ahead of the five-year anniversary of that moment, Mr Sharpton remembered the combination of “humiliation and deep anger” he felt seeing the footage of Mr Floyd’s death that swept the world.
“The more I watched, the more angry I felt,” he said.
Mr Floyd was murdered in Minneapolis by Derek Chauvin, a 44-year-old white police officer.
Mr Floyd had been arrested after a store clerk reported he had made a purchase using counterfeit money.
Chauvin knelt on Mr Floyd’s neck for over nine minutes, while he was handcuffed and lying face down in the street.
Chauvin pressed his knee on Mr Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes, as the victim repeatedly said ‘I can’t breathe’. Pic: AP
‘A seismic moment’
For Mr Sharpton, who has marched with countless other families, this felt different because it was “graphic and unnecessary”.
“What kind of person would hear somebody begging for their life and ignore them?” he said.
“I had no idea this would become a seismic moment,” he continued.
“I think people would accuse civil rights leaders, activists like me of being opportunistic, but we don’t know if one call from the next one is going to be big, all we know is we have to answer to the call.”
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Trump ‘pouring salt on the wounds’
Mr Floyd’s death took place during Donald Trump’s first term in the White House.
During Trump’s second term, his administration has moved to repeal federal oversight plans for the Minneapolis Police Department – a move originally supported by Joe Biden’s administration.
Mr Sharpton believes Mr Trump and the Department of Justice have purposely timed this for the 5th Anniversary of Mr Floyd’s Death.
“It’s pouring salt on the wounds of those that were killed, and those that fought,” he said.
“I think Donald Trump and his administration is actively trying to reverse and revoke changes and progress made with policing based on the movement we created after George Floyd’s death, worldwide.”
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Mr Sharpton still supports George Floyd’s family and will be with them this weekend in Houston, Texas, where many of them will mark the anniversary.
He said the legacy of Mr Floyd’s death is still being written.
Evoking the civil rights movement of the 1960s he said: “The challenge is we must turn those moments into permanent movements, it took nine years from 1955 to 1964 for Dr [Martin Luther] King in that movement to get a Civil Rights Act after Rosa Parks sat in the front of a bus in Montgomery.
“We’re five years out of George Floyd, we’ve got to change the laws.
“We can do it in under nine years, but we can’t do it if we take our eye off the prize.”
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