Congress finds 'substantial evidence' George Santos violated ethics, committed crimes including fraud and used campaign funds for personal use in damning ethics report

The House Ethics committee released its long-awaited report on George Santos Thursday, finding 'substantial evidence' the Long Island liar filed false election reports, used campaign funds for personal purposes and engaged in fraud. 

The committee did not give a recommendation on whether the House should take action to expel Santos, R-N.Y., which Chair Michael Guest said would have taken 'many more months.'  It did unanimously vote to make a criminal referral to the Department of Justice. 

The bipartisan committed stated in its report:  

'Representative Santos sought to fraudulently exploit every aspect of his House candidacy for his own personal financial profit. 

He blatantly stole from his campaign. 

He deceived donors into providing what they thought were contributions to his campaign but were in fact payments for his personal benefit.'

After last month's failed effort to expel Santos in the House, Republican Ethics Committee Chair Michael Guest will file a new resolution to expel Santos. A vote on that would occur after Thanksgiving.  

The report also states that the congressman reported fake loans to his political committees so that donors and party committees would want to make further donations to him. 

The report finds that Santos deceived people into donating to RedStone Strategies, which in 2022 was listed a committee dedicated to supporting his candidacy, and then transferred those funds to his personal account, using the money on Sephora, OnlyFans, and a $4,000 purchase at Hermes. 

It also found he spent campaign funds on Botox treatments and lavish Atlantic City trips with his husband.  

'Representative Santos continues to flout his statutory financial disclosure obligations and has failed to correct countless errors and omission,' the committee, said, despite being reminded to do so. 

'The ISC [investigative subcommittee] also found that, despite his attempts to blame others for much of the misconduct, Representative Santos was a knowing and active participant in the wrongdoing. Particularly troubling was Representative Santos’ lack of candor during the investigation itself.'

Separately, Santos has pleaded not guilty to 23 charges in federal court, including identity theft, charging his donors' credit cards without their approval and submitting false campaign reports. 

He is not expected to face a trial until next September. 

One $1,500 and one $1,400 charge on his campaign debit card, which was not submitted to the FEC, was listed as 'Botox' and a former Santos staffer told the committee the then-candidate once brought him to a Botox appointment that was near a campaign event. 

Another $2,300 was spent at resorts in Atlantic City over July 24 and 25, 2022 and no campaign purpose could be identified but one staffer did recall 'Santos told him that he enjoyed visiting casinos to play roulette, often with his husband.'

Another $3,300 Airbnb expense was reported as a 'hotel stay' over July 7, 2022 - a weekend Santos' calendar had him 'off at Hampton's for the weekend.' 

This is a breaking story. Please check back for updates.