New York Rep George Santos won't seek re-election after damning lawbreaking report

The Republican representative for New York has announced that he will not run for re-election in 2024, after the US House Ethics Committee amassed "overwhelming evidence" of lawbreaking.

The panel released a report stated that the Rep George Santos "cannot be trusted" after a month-long investigation into his conduct.

Santos immediately took to social media to dub the verdict as a "politicized smear", while also admitting he would step aside before his term ends next year, vowing to pursue his “conservative values in my remaining time in Congress.”

In light of the investigation however, a renewed effort to expel him from the House was launched.

The House could vote on his expulsion as soon as it returns from the Thanksgiving holiday later this month.

The panel said that Santos knowingly caused his campaign committee to file false or incomplete reports with the Federal Election Commission, used campaign funds for personal purposes and violated the Ethics in Government Act with financial disclosure statements filed with the House.

The ethics panel also detailed Santos’ lack of cooperation with its investigation and said he “evaded” straightforward requests for information.

“Particularly troubling was Representative Santos' lack of candour during the investigation itself,” the committee determined.

Santos had been given the chance to submit a signed written statement in response to allegations made against him, but he declined to do so.

The committee's investigative panel said that without Santos' cooperation it was unable to verify whether some expenses reported by his campaign were legitimate.

But certain expenses on their face did not appear to have a campaign nexus.

For example, it cited $2,281 (£1,837) spent at resorts in Atlantic City and $1,400 (around £1,127) spent at a skin spa for what one spreadsheet described as “Botox.”

The panel also identified a $3,332 (around £4135) expense for a hotel stay, though the campaign's calendar indicated he was “off at the Hampton's for the weekend.”

And there were tax and hotel charges on the campaign credit card from Las Vegas, during a time Santos told his campaign staff he was on his honeymoon and there were no corresponding campaign events on the calendar.

Instead, it urged House members “to take any action they deem appropriate and necessary” based on the report.

The findings by the investigative panel may be the least of Santos' worries.

The congressman faces a 23-count federal indictment that alleges he stole the identities of campaign donors and then used their credit cards to make tens of thousands of dollars in unauthorised charges.

Federal prosecutors say Santos, who has pleaded not guilty, wired some of the money to his personal bank account and used the rest to pad his campaign coffers.

Santos, who represents parts of Queens and Long Island, is also accused of falsely reporting to the Federal Election Commission that he had loaned his campaign $500,000 (around £402,825) when he actually hadn’t given anything and had less than $8,000 in the bank.

The fake loan was an attempt to convince Republican Party officials that he was a serious candidate, worth their financial support, the indictment says.

Expulsion, the sternest form of punishment, has occurred just five times in the history of the House - three times during the Civil War for disloyalty to the Union, and twice after convictions on federal charges, most recently in 2002.

If Santos were to be expelled, it would narrow the GOP's already thin majority in the House, which now stands at 221-213.

But many of his Republican colleagues from New York support booting Santos from the House as they seek to distance themselves from his actions.

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