George Santos, Calling Himself Mary Magdalene of Congress, Knows He’s Done

November 9, 2023, Washington, District of Columbia, USA: Rep. George Santos, R-N.Y., gives a tour of the U.S. Capitol Rotunda on Thursday, November 9, 2023. (Credit Image: © Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call via ZUMA Press)Tom Williams/Zuma

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.As George Santos stares down an all but certain expulsion from Congress, the disgraced New York Republican came out swinging against his congressional colleagues, accusing some of having committed felonies and others of “getting drunk every night” while planning to sleep with lobbyists. 
“Within the ranks of the United States Congress, there are felons galore,” Santos said during a grievance-filled, three-hour appearance on X Spaces Friday evening. “There’s people with all sorts of sheisty backgrounds, and all of a sudden, George Santos is the Mary Magdalene of the United States Congress.”
“If you want to expel me, I’ll wear it like a badge of honor,” he continued. “I’ll be the sixth expelled member of Congress.” (About this assertion, Santos is in fact correct.)
The appearance was something of a swan-song-rant for the freshman Republican, whose brief and ignominious career in Congress is likely to finally come to its humiliating end after Mississippi’s Rep. Michael Guest, GOP chairman of the House Ethics Committee, introduced a resolution to expel Santos once Congress returns from Thanksgiving break. The third such effort this year, the latest resolution is expected to finally be successful after last week’s release of a House investigation that concluded that Santos had “sought to fraudulently exploit every aspect of his House candidacy for his own personal financial profit.” The report also revealed that Santos allegedly used campaign funds on Botox and OnlyFans.
Moments after the report’s release, Santos announced that he was not going to seek reelection. But on Friday, the congressman claimed that the two were unrelated.
“I’m not running for reelection, not because this was a damning report. I’m not running for reelection because I don’t want to work with a bunch of hypocrites.”