The House Ethics Committee on Thursday found “substantial evidence” that Representative George Santos violated federal law, setting the stage for another push to expel the embattled first-term Republican from New York and prompting him to declare that he would not seek re-election.
House investigators found evidence that Mr. Santos used campaign funds for personal purposes, defrauded donors and filed false or incomplete campaign finance and financial disclosure reports, according to a 56-page report released on Thursday.
The committee voted unanimously to refer its findings to the Department of Justice, saying that Mr. Santos’s conduct “warrants public condemnation, is beneath the dignity of the office, and has brought severe discredit upon the House.”
And while the panel refrained from recommending any punitive measures, there were already indications that the report could be the catalyst for a third effort to remove Mr. Santos from office. Numerous members of Congress have previously said that they would support his expulsion if the committee found criminal wrongdoing or a severe breach of ethics.
“Most of us have never seen anything like this — this extensive, this brazen, and this bold,” said Representative Glenn F. Ivey, Democrat of Maryland, who sits on the Ethics Committee.
Mr. Ivey, a former federal prosecutor, said he believed the panel had uncovered additional evidence that could be used in Mr. Santos’s federal prosecution.
Mr. Santos, 35, a Republican representing parts of Long Island and Queens, already faces a 23-count federal indictment that includes accusations that he stole from his donors and falsified election campaign filings.
Mr. Santos, who did not respond to a request for comment, has resisted calls for his resignation, and has pleaded not guilty.
But shortly after the report was released, Mr. Santos announced on X, the website formerly known as Twitter, that he would not seek re-election in 2024.
Even so, he appeared to take issue with the panel’s findings, writing: “If there was a single ounce of ETHICS in the “Ethics committee,” they would have not released this biased report.”
After a nearly nine-month inquiry, ethics investigators concluded that Mr. Santos “sought to fraudulently exploit every aspect of his House candidacy for his own personal financial profit,” according to the report, which said that he sustained his campaign “through a constant series of lies to his constituents, donors, and staff about his background and experience.”
Mr. Santos reported hundreds of thousands of dollars in fictitious loans to his campaign, the report said, then repaid himself with real money.
The report also detailed how Mr. Santos submitted numerous expenditures that did not appear to have a campaign purpose, from travel and hotel stays in Las Vegas that corresponded to the time when he told staff members he was on his honeymoon to thousands of dollars at spas. At least two payments were described as being for Botox.
Some of the most salacious details of the report concern a company called RedStone Strategies, which Mr. Santos used to raise money without being constrained by campaign contribution limits.
Investigators found that Mr. Santos transferred at least $200,000 to himself from RedStone through numerous transactions in 2022, some of which was used to pay off personal credit cards and make purchases at Hermes, Sephora and OnlyFans, a website known for its adult content.
The findings appeared to undermine Mr. Santos’s underlying criminal defense strategy. The congressman has repeatedly denied involvement in his campaign’s finances, saying that his treasurer had “gone rogue.”
But investigators found that Mr. Santos was “heavily involved” in financial matters, noting that he received weekly finance reports and invoices and had login credentials to campaign bank accounts.
Mr. Santos’s treasurer, Nancy Marks, pleaded guilty to federal charges last month, becoming the first person associated with his campaign to do so. The second, a campaign aide named Samuel Miele, pleaded guilty earlier this week.
The committee was not able to substantiate accusations that Mr. Santos was guilty of sexual harassment. The allegations were made last February by a prospective aide who accused Mr. Santos of coming onto him, then firing him after his advances were rebuffed. The Santos campaign said that it had fired the aide after learning of wiretapping charges he faced in Ohio.
Earlier this month, a bloc of first-term Republicans representing moderate districts in Mr. Santos’s home state of New York forced a vote on his expulsion from Congress. That effort failed decisively, with many House members saying they were leery of setting a precedent for removal without a finding from a court or the Ethics Committee.
Those critics, including Anthony D’Esposito, a fellow Long Island Republican, have wasted little time in using the ethics investigation to push their colleagues on both sides of the aisle to reconsider Mr. Santos’s expulsion.
Representative Dan Goldman, Democrat of New York, said in a statement on Thursday that he would file a motion after Thanksgiving to expel Mr. Santos from the House.
The Ethics Committee has described the Santos investigation, which came after a series of complaints from both members of Congress and the public, as “a priority for the investigative team” that utilized a “significant amount of the committee’s resources.”
The panel contacted roughly 40 witnesses, reviewed more than 170,000 pages of documents, and authorized 37 subpoenas.
The probe covered a range of alleged criminal and ethical violations, including accusations that the congressman violated conflict of interest laws while conducting business for his firm, the Devolder Organization, and failed to properly file financial disclosures.
Some of that conduct is also being taken up by federal prosecutors, who have charged Mr. Santos with a variety of crimes involving his personal and campaign finances.
Mr. Santos’s re-election campaign had already faced an uphill battle. Even before he announced in April that he would run for re-election, state and county party officials said they would not support his efforts. His fund-raising totals lagged behind potential challengers.
Last month, Thomas R. Suozzi, the Long Island Democrat whose failed bid for governor in 2022 may have helped clear the way for Mr. Santos to get to Congress, announced that he would run for his old seat, in hopes of returning the swing district to Democratic control.
Luke Broadwater and Michael Gold contributed reporting.
