Disgraced former House member George Santos referred to a Republican lawmaker as a “woman beater” in fiery remarks exchanged forward of the vote to expel him.
The 35-year-old known as out “hypocrisy” from Ohio Representative Max Miller on Thursday, who had branded him a “crook”.
It got here forward of a vote on Friday, which in the end noticed Mr Santos expelled from the House following a damning ethics report that discovered he “knowingly” used his marketing campaign committee to file false and incomplete stories to the Federal Election Commission (FEC).
It additionally alleges that he used marketing campaign donations for private bills, violated the Ethics in Government Act, and dedicated fraud utilizing an organization he co-owned.
Speaking on the House flooring on Thursday, Mr Miller stated: “I myself have been a victim of George Santos and as well as other members of Congress in terms of defrauding through public donations and received an ethics complaint from the FEC, which I had to spend tens of thousands to defend myself.”
George Santos is surrounded by journalists as he leaves the US Capitol after his fellow members of Congress voted to expel him from the House of Representatives
(Getty Images)
“You are a crook,” Mr Miller added, addressing Mr Santos immediately.
Mr Santos rose to talk, first asking that Mr Miller’s feedback be stricken from the report.
He continued: “Mr Speaker, the hypocrisy. As I mentioned, my colleague wants to come up here. Call me a crook. [The] same colleague who’s accused of being a woman beater.
“Are we really going to ignore the facts that we all have pasts and we all have the media coming out against us on a daily basis?”
Mr Miller filed a defamation lawsuit in opposition to his former girlfriend and White House colleague Stephanie Grisham in 2020.
It adopted the publication of a e book written by Ms Grisham – a former White House Press Secretary below Donald Trump – wherein she claimed a fellow member of the then-president’s employees bodily abused her.
While Ms Grisham didn’t use Miller’s title within the e book, his lawsuit acknowledged he was the boyfriend in query.
Politico reported in July 2021 that Ms Grisham and Mr Miller’s relationship ended “when he pushed her against a wall and slapped her in the face in his Washington apartment after she accused him of cheating on her.”
George Santos expelled from US House of Representatives in landslide vote
In latest days, Santos has accused a lot of his GOP colleagues of illicit behaviour and argued that if he’s expelled for his allegedly unlawful acts – he’s presently dealing with 23 federal costs – then any of them could possibly be as effectively.
On Friday the US House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly to expel the now-former New York congressman with 105 of his Republicans becoming a member of each Democrat to take away the embattled member from workplace.
Mr Santos joined the ranks of 5 different members of Congress – all of them Democrats and three of whom have been members of the Confederacy – to be expelled, which he stated he thought-about a badge of honour.
Votes to expel members of Congress are terribly uncommon and require a two-thirds majority of the House of Representatives. The vote got here after Speaker Mike Johnson and a lot of the Republican management voted to maintain him within the House of Representatives.
