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By Sam Cabral in Washington DC and Max MatzaBBC News
The US House of Representatives will vote within hours on whether to expel New York Republican George Santos after a damning ethics report, fraud charges and an alleged farrago of lies.
The Republican-led body failed in two previous roll calls to oust Mr Santos.
But the embattled congressman has conceded it may well be third time lucky for his political enemies.
As colleagues debated his future on Thursday, he refused to resign and accused them of bullying him.
In a defiant news conference the 35-year-old Long Island lawmaker said he wouldn’t quit, “because if I leave, they win”.
Earlier this month, the House ethics committee found he “blatantly stole from his campaign” and exploited “every aspect of his House candidacy for his own personal financial profit”.
Among the many allegations in its final report, the panel accused him of spending campaign money on Botox treatments, OnlyFans, a web porn site, and holidays in the Hamptons, an elite seaside enclave in New York state.
In Thursday’s debate, the ethics committee’s Republican chairman Michael Guest strongly defended the report and urged lawmakers to expel Mr Santos.
Expulsion votes are rare in Congress and require a two-thirds supermajority – only five lawmakers have ever been removed this way.
“If I am to get expelled tomorrow, I will be number six in history, the first Republican and the only one without a conviction or without having committed treason,” Mr Santos told reporters on Thursday.
He is currently facing 23 federal felony charges, including wire fraud, money laundering and theft of public funds, as well as separate allegations of campaign finance violations.
After he won election in November 2022, reports emerged that Mr Santos had lied about a Wall Street career, a college degree and having Jewish ancestry.
The scandals swirling around the lawmaker have pulled off the rare feat of uniting lawmakers on both sides of the aisle as they club together to have him removed.
In Thursday’s debate, Susan Wild, a Democrat from Pennsylvania, said the ethics report shows that he “repeatedly, egregiously and brazenly violated the public’s trust”.
Republican lawmakers from New York also denounced Mr Santos. Marc Molinaro accused him of denying voters “an honest choice” by allegedly lying about his background when running for Congress.
Another Republican congressman, Michael Lawler, said: “He can defend himself in the court of law, but for the purposes of this body, he’s got to go.”
There were some lawmakers who argued that he has not been convicted of any crimes and deserved “due process”.
“We’re talking about the removal of a member of Congress,” said Clay Higgins, a Louisiana Republican.
“Are the American people to believe the opinions of congressmen is a higher standard than the delivered vote of the American people?”
On Wednesday, House Speaker Mike Johnson said he had “real reservations” about the ousting of Mr Santos.
“We’re going to allow people to vote their conscience,” he added. “I trust that people will make the decision thoughtfully and in good faith.”
Several members, who previously voted down expulsion until the House ethics panel completed its work, told US media they are reversing their positions and now support Mr Santos’ removal.
Speaker Johnson and other party leaders have begged Mr Santos to resign so they can avoid another vote.
But the besieged Republican has rebuffed their pleas, venting online and bashing colleagues.
At his Thursday news conference, he accused them of rushing to judgement and creating a precedent that would “haunt” them.
Mr Santos called the vote “theatre for the American people at the expense of the American people”, and said he felt “oddly calm” about the vote.
He added that he would introduce his own expulsion motion against Jamaal Bowman, a Democrat accused of pulling a fire alarm to sabotage a vote.
Mr Bowman, who paid a $1,000 fine over the incident, shot back with a statement railing against “another meaningless stunt in his long history of cons, antics, and outright fraud”.
Mr Santos also later told reporters he was considering an appearance on Dancing with the Stars, according to the New York Times.
The prospect of voting to remove Mr Santos is, however, a tricky matter for his party.
For one, it will further pare down Republicans’ narrow nine-seat House majority.
And there is no guarantee another Republican will win the congressional seat he holds, which was easily won by Joe Biden in the 2020 general election.
If Mr Santos is expelled, New York’s governor has 10 days to call for an election, which would take place 70 to 80 days later.
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