George Santos Was Expelled From Congress Over His Various Financial Misdeeds

It takes a special person to be expelled from Congress. The famously cordial body has let people get away with all manner of misdeeds over the course of its history, and George Santos was just the sixth person to ever face expulsion. Now, as he's set to be sentenced in a federal fraud trial, many are wondering what he did to get expelled from Congress back in 2023.

Santos made plenty of headlines at the time, in part because there just seemed to be so much about him that was unusual. Here's what we know about why he was expelled from Congress.

Santos was kicked out of Congress at the end of 2023 after he was accused by prosecutors of a wide variety of financial misdeeds, including reimbursing himself for loans to his congressional campaign that he appears to have never actually made, or stealing money from the people who contributed to his campaign. Allegations also suggested that he had lied about various parts of his background and identity, and inflated his net worth by saying he was worth $11 million.

Santos had at times falsely claimed that he was a volleyball star at Baruch College, that he had worked at Goldman Sachs and Citigroup, and that he was Jewish. All of that made Santos a source of intrigue, but it wasn't until he was indicted on 13 counts that included fraud, money laundering, theft of public funds, and making materially false statements to the House of Representatives that it seemed possible he would be expelled.

Republican Rep. Michael Guest of Mississippi then led the House Ethics Committee in putting together a report that corroborated many of the allegations against Santos. Shortly after that report was released, it became likely that he would be expelled.

Although Santos initially denied the allegations against him, he has since claimed that he has seen the error of his ways.

After being indicted, Santos pleaded guilty in the summer of 2024 and has publicly expressed remorse. His lawyers have argued that because he expressed remorse, Santos should only receive the minimum two-year sentence that's required by law. The prosecutors on the case, meanwhile, insist on a much harsher sentence for Santos and have questioned whether his remorse is sincere.

“Saying I’m sorry doesn’t require me to sit quietly while these prosecutors try to drop an anvil on my head,” Santos pushed back in a recent letter to the court.

In pleading guilty to two felonies, Santos admitted to filing false campaign finance reports, charging donors’ credit cards without authorization, and fraudulently receiving unemployment benefits, among other things.

Those same charges are the reason he is no longer in Congress. Although the President of the United States is a convicted criminal, it seems Congress could not abide having a convicted criminal in their body. It's a dissonance that we're all going to have to work through in the years ahead.