Speaker Johnson tells Republicans to ‘vote their conscience’ on Santos expulsion

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said he has “real reservations” about the push to expel Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) from Congress but told members of the House GOP conference Wednesday to “vote their conscience” when a resolution to oust the embattled lawmaker hits the floor this week.

“… What we’ve said as the leadership team is we’re gonna allow people to vote their conscience, I think, is the only appropriate thing we can do. We’ve not whipped the vote, and we wouldn’t. I trust that people will make that decision thoughtfully and in good faith,” Johnson said at a press conference.

“I, personally, have real reservations about doing this. I’m concerned about a precedent that may be set for that. Everybody’s working through that, and we’ll see how they vote tomorrow,” he added.

A vote to expel Santos is expected to take place Thursday after two lawmakers moved to force votes on ousting the New York Republican on Tuesday. If successful, Santos would become the sixth lawmaker to be booted from the House in history.

Santos has already survived two expulsion votes this year — in May and in November — but the current push to oust him poses the greatest threat to his congressional tenure after a handful of lawmakers who protected him in the past now say they will vote to boot him after the House Ethics Committee released a damning report on the New York Republican.

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The bipartisan panel found that Santos “violated federal criminal laws” and that he used campaign funds for trips to Atlantic City and Las Vegas, on Botox, at the luxury brand Hermés, and for purchases from OnlyFans, a subscription platform that is largely used for adult content.

House Republicans discussed the expulsion resolution during their conference meeting Wednesday morning, according to multiple lawmakers. Johnson said “there were opinions shared on both sides.”

“I said that the Republican Party is the rule of law team, and we are. We believe in the rule of law. There are people of good faith who make an argument, both pro and con, for the expulsion resolution for Santos,” Johnson said.

“There are people who say you have to uphold the rule of law and allow for someone to be convicted in a criminal court before this tough penalty would be exacted on someone. That’s been the precedent so far,” he continued. “There are others who say, well, upholding the rule of law requires us to take this step now because some of the things that he’s alleged to have done, the House Ethics Committee having done their job, are infractions against the House itself.”

Rep. Nick LaLota (R-N.Y.), a top Santos critic, said he spoke in favor of the expulsion push during the Wednesday morning meeting.

“I said that the Republican Party, for a couple of years, has campaigned on election integrity, and that if we want to hold that high ground on election integrity, if we want to be the party that voters can rely on to fight fraud in our election system, there is no more provable case of election fraud before this Congress than George Santos, and we should act accordingly, and that means to expel George Santos,” Lalota said leaving the gathering.

Some conservative lawmakers, however, spoke out against the expulsion effort at the closed-door meeting, according to one House Republican, who requested anonymity to discuss the private conversation.

“There were some folks, Freedom Caucus people, which is always rich, they go and say that this is not fair, it’s gonna hurt the conference,” the GOP lawmaker told The Hill.

“They were saying this was wrong against Santos,” the lawmaker added, noting that the conservatives also warned “this could happen to you.”

Updated at 4:25 p.m.