WASHINGTON – A crowd of Rep. George Santos’s (R-N.Y.) constituents gathered outside his office in the Capitol Tuesday afternoon to deliver a petition calling for his expulsion, as the embattled freshman congressman faces continued scrutiny.
“Santos exploited the identity of our district and intentionally manufactured lies in order to deceive the public into supporting him,” the petition read. “This moral corruption necessitates immediate action.”
Santos, who represents parts of Queens and Long Island, has been under pressure since news reports pointed to fabricated parts of his biography. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) acknowledged to CNN on Tuesday that Santos is the subject of ethics complaints.
The constituent group is urging McCarthy to schedule a vote in the chamber to remove Santos from office. McCarthy said Tuesday that if the Ethics Committee found something in its probe, the House would take action.
Rep. Daniel Goldman (D-N.Y.) said the ethics investigation would only focus on Santos’s financial disclosures and campaign finance, but that his constituents were also concerned about other uncovered lies.
“All of those lies by George Santos are more than enough to not only bring him disrepute, to bring this hallowed body disrepute, but to bring the Republican party disrepute,” Goldman said. “So the question becomes, why won’t Kevin McCarthy urge George Santos to resign?”
The constituents, many of whom are members of the newly formed Concerned Citizens of NY-03, delivered impassioned speeches outside Santos’s office.
Santos, who had entered his office shortly before the group arrived, did not come out to speak to his constituents.
“He’s avoiding us. It’s very, very frustrating because he says he’s here to do the work of ‘the people.’ Well, I am his people, we are his people,” said Susan Naftol, a resident of Santos’s district. “The fact that he says he is representing us, is not true. If he was representing us, and he cared about our thoughts and concerns, he would’ve met with us.”
Santos previously said he would resign if 142,000 people asked him to. A recent poll suggested that the majority of the district is calling for his resignation.
