The Republican chairman of the Home Ethics Committee on Friday filed a decision to expel Rep. George Santos from Congress within the wake of a damning report alleging the scandal-plagued GOP freshman dedicated marketing campaign fraud and theft.

Ethics Chairman Michael Visitor, R-Miss., mentioned the proof uncovered via the committee’s investigation of Santos “is greater than adequate to warrant punishment.”

“Essentially the most acceptable punishment, is expulsion,” Visitor mentioned in an announcement. “So, separate from the Committee course of and my function as Chairman, I’ve filed an expulsion decision.”

That decision won’t come to a vote till someday after the Home returns from its Thanksgiving recess on Nov. 28.

Santos has already declared he’ll now not search reelection in 2024, at the same time as he slammed the ethics report as a “politicized smear.” On Thursday evening, he introduced a press convention Nov. 30 on the steps of the U.S. Capitol.

The embattled New York lawmaker has survived two prior makes an attempt to oust him over his lies and alleged marketing campaign finance crimes. The Home, through which Republicans maintain a razor-thin majority, requires the help of two-thirds of the chamber so as to expel a member.

However on the heels of Thursday’s ethics report, a lot of Santos’ GOP colleagues who beforehand voted to maintain him in Congress declared that they might now help an effort to throw him out.

The 56-page report discovered that Santos, 35, “sought to fraudulently exploit each side of his Home candidacy for his personal private monetary revenue.”

Santos “blatantly stole from his marketing campaign,” deceiving donors and submitting faux marketing campaign loans whereas sustaining a “sequence of lies” about his background and expertise, the report alleged.

Santos allegedly used cash meant for his marketing campaign to “enrich himself,” together with by spending greater than $4,000 at luxurious clothes retailer Hermes and making purchases on grownup cam website OnlyFans.

“I didn’t vote up to now to expel George as a result of I did not consider there was due course of,” Rep. Ken Buck, R-Colo., mentioned Thursday on MSNBC, however “I believe he is been given the honest due course of now.”

The Ethics panel voted to refer the report’s findings to the Division of Justice.

Santos has been trapped beneath a cloud of scandal for the whole lot of his transient tenure in Congress. After successful his race for the district protecting elements of Queens and Nassau counties, Santos admitted mendacity about his enterprise and schooling background.

He has denied numerous different allegations of wrongdoing. However he has since been hit with a raft of costs in New York federal court docket, the place he’s accused of crimes together with id theft, wire fraud and falsifying data. Santos has pleaded not responsible to the entire costs.