George Santos aide quits as expulsion calls grow over ethics report: Latest

George Santos’ communications director Gabrielle Lipsky has resigned in the wake of the ethics report on her longtime boss.

The Hill reported Ms Lipsky’s resignation on Friday, a day after the bombshell report found evidence that Mr Santos had broken federal law.

Ms Lipsky began working on Mr Santos’ campaign in April 2022.

The move means Mr Santos will have to find a new top voice in his office as colleagues gear up for an expulsion vote.

The congressman is, in short, accused of lying about loaning his own money to his 2022 congressional campaign, then “paying himself back” for those fake loans with real money.

Those fake loans topped $500,000 — no small amount. But that’s not the only fraud Mr Santos is accused of engaging in; he is accused of deceiving donors into giving money to RedStone LLC, ostensibly to support his campaign; in reality, that money was also used, according to the Ethics Committee, as a kind of slush fund for Mr Santos’s personal use.

He and his campaign are also accused of obtaining donors’ credit card numbers and stealing their identities.

A lengthy report from the committee published on Thursday stated that there was credible evidence to indicate that the Republican misused campaign funds for a wide range of personal expenses, committed fraud, and misled the Federal Election Commission (FEC).

It was a damning end to a months-long investigation which had, until now, been Mr Santos’s golden ticket to survive the repeated efforts by his fellow lawmakers — including Republicans from his own state — to kick him out of Congress. Now, his days in Congress are presumably numbered as it is overwhelmingly likely that the House will vote to expel him in the coming days.

Lawmakers tried as much only a few weeks ago, with Mr Santos being saved once again by colleagues who did not wish to set a precedent of prejudging a member under investigation by the Ethics Committee. The New York congressman was already facing numerous felony charges in New York under indictment from the Justice Department.

He will not run for re-election, according to a lengthy tirade posted to Twitter moments after the Ethics Committee report was released. Even that statement is a total reversal of a declaration he made to CNN’s Manu Raju less than a month ago in an interview.

In that same statement Thursday, he called for Americans to call a Constitutional Convention to radically reform Congress. This is unlikely to occur, and particularly so if it is championed by a congressman who has now admitted to fabricating nearly the entirety of his background and is known to have lied about everything from being descended from Holocaust survivors to seeing his mother die on 9/11.

Seth Myers also got in on the roasting action, saying that Mr Colbert’s list of possible purchases was that of a “lesser Kardashian.”

“He’s got the shopping list of a 98-year-old oil tycoon’s 20-year-old wife,” Mr Myers quipped.

The expulsion motion can be taken up by the Chamber on 28 November, when lawmakers will return from Thanksgiving recess.

Stephen Colbert also chimed in on the recent report, called the politician a “slug under a rock you just turned over” and announced that “if there are any fans of stupidity and corruption out there, you have joined us on the right night.”

Mr Colbert then cut to a clip of an interviewee asking Mr Santos what he felt about the House Ethics report that was to be revealed, to which he said he had no “premeditated feelings” about it.

“No premeditated feelings, exactly what a sociopath wouldn’t say,” Mr Colbert chuckled.

“‘Today we bid farewell to grandma,” the late-night show said, impersonating Mr Santos.

“Let me just say to all of you I have not had a chance to Google the correct emotional reaction, but rest assured, like all of you, I am … angry? It’s hard to tell because of all the Botox.”

It was the Botox that bewildered Ms Jones’ co-host, Jordan Klepper, who pointed out Mr Santos’ relatively young age, 35.

“He’s the youngest member of Congress by 1,000 years,” according to Mr Klepper. “You don’t get Botox — just stand next to Mitch McConnell.”

“Exactly,” Ms Jones agreed. “He doesn’t need Botox. But the rest of them old-a** congressmen do.”

Santos, or rather comedian Nelson Franklin impersonating him, appeared on Jimmy Kimmel’s show in a bizarre skit pretending the politician was getting Botox before performing wild antics like stealing a cash register, hiring a hit man to break Mr Kimmel’s legs and flying a DeLorean to break himself out of prison in the year 2045.

Following the release of the document, the GOP New York representative announced in a series of tirades on X that he would not run for re-election in 2024. In the report, the House Ethics Committee accused the politician of lying about loaning personal money to his 2022 congressional campaign, then “paying himself back” for those fake loans with actual money.

He is also alleged to have spent donor money on personal indulgences such as Botox, Hermes merchandise, trips and an OnlyFans subscription.

Something that caught guest The Daily Show host Leslie Jones’ eye was the report noting Mr Santos’ “lavish” trips to Atlantic City. “Have you been to Atlantic City?” she inquired. “A ‘lavish’ trip there just means you don’t go home with bed bugs.”

The House Ethics Committee released a report on the New York congressman, saying it had uncovered “substantial evidence” that Mr Santos broke federal laws.

The committee found that Mr Santos “knowingly” caused his campaign to file false FEC reports, used campaign funds for personal purposes, including OnlyFans, among other findings.

After the report’s release, Mr Santos announced he would not seek re-election in 2024. In a lengthy X post, he called the report a “disgusting politicized smear.”

The Justice Department handed down a 23-count superseding indictment months later, adding the charges of conspiracy to commit offenses against the United States, wire fraud, aking materially false statements to the FEC, falsifying records submitted to obstruct the FEC, aggravated identity theft, and access device fraud.

The new charges revealed that Mr Santos allegedly stole his donors’ credit cards. In the case of one donor alone, Mr Santos is accused of trying to charge at least $44,800 to this contributor’s credit card without authorisation.