There's little House Republicans can or will do about incoming GOP congressman George Santos' list of apparent lies
- A recent New York Times report details how Representative-elect George Santos misrepresented his past.
- But voters have already elected Santos as the next representative for New York's 3rd Congressional District.
A charity with no IRS records to be found.
Lies about where he attended higher education.
An employment history that doesn't add up.
The tale spun on the campaign trail by Representative-elect George Santos of New York's 3rd Congressional District about his life appears to be nearly entirely made up, according to a recent New York Times report.
Santos' attorney, Joseph Murray, responded to the New York Times' allegations by attacking the publication and using a misattributed Winston Churchill quote. Murray did not, however, deny any specific parts of the report.
With just weeks remaining until the next session of Congress begins and Santos is sworn in, there's little the GOP can do about the situation.
Members of the party could publicly denounce Santos, but a denouncement from current House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, a hopeful to take over as House Speaker, is unlikely: Santos has already espoused his support for McCarthy as Speaker of the House, and McCarthy needs all the votes he can get for the role.
Walt Shaub, the senior ethics fellow at the Project on Government Oversight, told Insider that it's unlikely the GOP will be able to actually remove Santos from office. He said there are two separate procedures for removal: exclusion and expulsion.
An exclusion would mean that the House would refuse to seat a representative-elect for not meeting the "qualifications to be a member of Congress or because the election itself was invalid."
Neither of those scenarios appear to apply to Santos.
Expulsion is when the House or Senate explicitly removes a member from the chamber for character issues, misconduct, or general fitness to serve. This can only happen via a two-thirds vote.
Santos' expulsion is unlikely, Shaub said, because "if we banned members of Congress for lying, other sitting members would have to worry about their jobs right now."
Schaub also noted that Republicans in Congress could deny Santos committee assignments, an action that could affect Santos' future reelection chances.
Debra Perlin, the policy director at the legal watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said Santos "should not be permitted" to be seated in a committee related to national security or one that receives any intelligence and suggested he wouldn't even be able to pass the standards to receive a security clearance in the first place.
"When an individual applies for a security clearance the background investigation includes record checks to verify citizenship, employment, residency, and education among others," Perlin said. "According to the New York Times story, none of those were verifiable. If in the regular course of events Rep.-elect Santos would not be given a security clearance, it is mind-boggling to think that our security infrastructure might nonetheless give him access to our nation's most guarded secrets simply because he was elected to Congress."