- Written by Anthony Zurcher
- North American correspondent
A day after the U.S. House Ethics Committee released a damning report detailing evidence of corruption and fraud by Rep. George Santos, the committee’s chairman, Michael Guest, announced that embattled New York Republican congressman Michael Guest He submitted a resolution to expel him.
If the House approves the resolution – a high bar requiring a two-thirds majority – it would be the sixth time the House has expelled one of its own elected representatives.
Santos would then join a shortlist of politicians who have been convicted of corruption or bribery or have been implicated in treason.
“Lawmakers are reluctant to go down that path,” said Jason Roberts, a political science professor at the University of North Carolina. “Think about the democratic principles at play here. Voters have decided that these people should represent them, and the view of most MPs is that voters should decide who stays. You have to decide if you want to leave.”
Moreover, he added, most politicians who find themselves in trouble like the one Santos is facing resign before they can be ousted.
New York state legislators seem unusually stubborn.
Jim Traficant: Convicted of federal crimes, but tried to return to Congress twice
The most recent expulsion occurred in 2002, when the eastern Ohio native was known for his bad toupee and habit of quoting the Star Trek TV series’ catchphrase “Beam Me Up” during speeches to Congress. Democrats of color were involved.
Jim Traficant was convicted in federal court earlier that year on 10 charges including bribery, tax evasion and extortion, including giving some congressional staffers jobs around his farm in Ohio. It also included a requirement to pay monthly kickbacks from federal paychecks.
Despite facing expulsion from Congress, he remained defiant.
“I’m going to go to jail before I resign and admit I didn’t do it,” he said.
Ohio’s senators did not resign, but he was forced to step down by a 420-1 vote. And he actually went to prison and served seven years of an eight-year sentence.
But the home speech at the maximum-security U.S. prison in Allenwood, Pennsylvania, did not end Traficant’s political aspirations. He left the Democratic Party, registered as an independent, and ran for the veteran House seat from his cell, winning 15 percent of the vote in the 2002 election. After his release, he ran again as an independent in 2010, this time winning 16%. Both were defeated by Democrat Tim Ryan.
Traficant died in a tractor accident on his farm in 2014.
Michael Myers: ‘I took bribes in American Hustle scandal’
The only other modern House ouster incident occurred in 1980, as part of a large-scale federal FBI sting targeting public corruption and organized crime. This episode inspired the 2013 Oscar-nominated film American Hustle.
Investigators say Michael Myers, a Democratic congressman from Philadelphia, took a $50,000 bribe from an undercover agent posing as an agent of an Arab emirate who was allegedly seeking political asylum and other government benefits in the United States. I took a video of the reception.
In his defense, Myers said he was drunk at the time and considered the meeting a “farce” in which he had no obligation to help the chief even after receiving the money.
It is an account that neither the jury nor the parliamentary committee that recommended his expulsion found to be reliable.
“Unfortunately, this case is a blatant case of personal greed being allowed in disregard of members’ sworn duties, and the promise of votes and influence being traded for money,” the House of Representatives Committee on Investigations said in its report. It all comes down to the incident in exchange.”
Myers was one of six deputies ultimately convicted in the investigation. He was the only one who refused his resignation. He was sentenced to three years in prison and expelled from the House by a vote of 376 to 30.
It wasn’t his first or last run-in with the law.
In 1979, while a congressman, he accepted a plea deal for assaulting a security guard at a hotel near Washington after a party he was hosting was reported to be too loud.
In 2022, the former congressman, now 79, was sentenced to two and a half years in prison after pleading guilty to participating in election fraud on behalf of clients in the Philadelphia area while working as a political consultant.
Unlike these two politicians, Mr. Santos has been charged with multiple felonies, but faces deportation before being convicted. Still, his situation has more in common with the modern-day corruption of Trafficnt and Myers than the fate that befell the other three politicians who were expelled from the House of Representatives.
UNC’s Roberts says electoral politics are part of the reason.
“Republicans who are pushing for Mr. Santos’ ouster, especially in New York, are worried that Mr. Santos will hold them back,” Roberts said, adding that they are in battleground states targeted by Democrats. He added that there is.
And unlike Mr. Traficant, who served as president for 17 years, Mr. Santos is new to Congress and has not built any political alliances that could protect him.
Confederate Army: Maintained a tripartite relationship with the United States during the Civil War.
Representatives John Reed and John Clark of Missouri and Henry Barnett of Kentucky were expelled from Congress in 1861 for siding with the Confederacy in the Civil War.
Mr. Reid had actually resigned earlier that year, but the House appears not to have been notified. Burnett briefly worked for the secessionist Kentucky government and fought in the Confederate Army.
Clark served as a brigadier general in the Missouri National Guard, a militia that clashed with federal soldiers in the Union state. After the war, he ran for Congress again, but lost to his son, John Clark Jr.
The three members join 14 other U.S. senators who have been expelled from the Senate for similar reasons. (In 1877, the Senate revoked the expulsion of Arkansas Sen. William Sebastian after his death, finding that he had not actively supported the Confederacy.)
The House of Representatives previously voted to remove Santos from office.
The House of Representatives is expected to vote on Santos’ ouster after Congress reconvenes after the Thanksgiving break next week.
A previous attempt to remove Mr. Santos failed by a vote of 179 to 213, far short of the two-thirds vote needed to remove him. However, the details of the ethics report prompted some lawmakers who initially did not support Santos’ ouster to change their stance.
Still, the New Yorker’s situation has more in common with the modern-day corruption of Trafficant and Myers than with the fates that befell the other three politicians expelled from the House.
If Santos is formally expelled, New York state will schedule a special election to fill his seat.
And if the checkered history of politicians receiving the ultimate punishment in Congress is any guide, this may not be the last the American public hears from the New York congressman.