Transcript of Hear from congressman who led charge to expel George Santos

Embattled Republican congressman George Santos' brief but turbulent congressional career could be cut short. The GOP chairman of the House Ethics Committee filed a resolution on Friday to expel Santos from the House. This comes after the bipartisan panel released a scathing new report documenting violations of House rules and campaign fraud by Santos. Already, 13 Republicans who previously voted against ousting Santos are now lining up to expel him, and that number could grow. Joining us now to discuss is Democratic congressman Robert Garcia of California. Congressman, thank you for joining us.

Happy to be here.

Now, earlier this year, you led the charge to expel congressman Santos even before this report came out. What made you make that move so early on?

I mean, look, nine months ago, we already knew that he was a liar, a fraud, had completely essentially created his entire life story to get elected to Congress. He had actually already admitted to fraud and to a conviction in Brazil. Nine months ago, I believe, was ready to be expelled from Congress. He is a complete fraudster. Of course, back then, Republicans blocked that resolution that we put forward, and instead, they moved this whole case to the Ethics Commission. The committee, the commission, looked at the work, they looked at tons and tons of witness statements, and they finally put out this report. The report is incredibly damning. It confirms everything that we already knew. He essentially created an enormous slush fund using all of his campaign donors to actually fund his private life, his clothing, all sorts of crazy shopping trips across the country. Now he's got to be held accountable for what he's done. We are going to expel George Santos finally, and his time is up.

It did confirm some of the suspicions that people had, but there were a lot of specifics in here that were surprising. This report found that he was using campaign funds on anything from Botox to luxury shopping sprees to the adult site-only fans. What were your reactions to some of these new specific findings?

You can't make this stuff up. It's totally crazy what George Santos has done. Essentially spend his campaign donors and their hard-earned money on pornography and on shopping trips to Ferragamo is crazy. And the fact that Republicans have been trying to protect him for these last nine months, I'm glad that finally we now have so many House Republicans that are stepping up and they're finally agreeing that it's time for him to go. We know the Democrats are going to be united with this expulsion coming up. We're going to file expulsion papers the first day we're back. Republicans are going to do the same thing. That's great. We're welcome. The more people that file, the better. I think we're just every day more and more Republicans are actually announcing their intention, how they're going to vote. It's time for them to go in to restore some integrity to the House of Representatives.

Well, not everyone is a convert. Even after the report came out, GOP congressman Warren Davidson told CNN he was still undecided about expelling Santos. So what do you say to fellow lawmakers who were still on defense even after this report?

What else does he have to do? What else does George Santos have to do to prove to us that he's unfit to be in the US Congress. I mean, to essentially steal, cheat, lie, under oath, falsify all his documents, his campaign documents, his oath of office, which he's defiled. I think a lot of Republicans are going to have a wake of call over the course of the next week and a half or so. When this comes forward, I think you're going to see a wave of Republican support that's expulsion. I will be surprised and honestly, I'll be stunned if the speaker doesn't vote to expel George Santis. He has done everything possible to prove that he is worthy of this vote. He also, remember, has to face a court and he has 23 additional counts, criminal counts. It's not just what's going to happen here in Congress, but he's going to have to face a conviction. The future is not looking great for him, and he now has to not only face his community, but he's going to have to face all the folks back home who voted for essentially a falsification of a person.

That would be quite a trial. I want to turn to a different topic now. House Speaker Mike Johnson says that he plans to publicly release thousands of hours of security footage from the January sixth attack on the Capitol. Now, he released a statement saying, This decision will provide millions of Americans, criminal defendants, public interest organizations, and the media an ability to see for themselves what happened that day, rather than having to rely upon the interpretation of a small group of government officials. Likely they're referring to the January sixth Committee. Do you agree with this decision?

Look, what I know is that the speaker, along with the House majority, don't believe that there was any type of insurrection or attack that happened on January sixth. It's shameful that they continue to politicize what was an attack on our government and our nation's capital. They want to release more information. They want to release more info. Fine, release information that can create a broader picture. But we've all seen the video. We've all seen the tapes. We've all seen the reporting done by you and so many other news organizations. We know that there was a violent attack on the Capitol egged on by Donald Trump and now enabled by this Republican majority. And the speaker, by the way, as part of his leadership and the reason why he's in office is because of his defense of Donald Trump. His defense of Donald Trump, even though Donald Trump created this enormous, I believe, attack on our nation's capital. I think that the Speaker has an agenda. He clearly has had one since he's been defending Donald Trump. We'll see what he ends up releasing. I'm sure anything he releases will be politicized. Let's just be honest about what happened that day that was an attack on our Capitol.

Insurrectionists need to be held accountable for what they did.

As someone who works at the Capitol, do you have any security concerns about releasing this footage?

Absolutely. That's why we don't know what he's going to release. He says he's going to release footage. We don't know what that means. What we've been saying is anything that gets should be vetted by national security officials, certainly Capitol Police. Just to release footage without any type of security measures in place, I think, is dangerous and irresponsible. We'll see. We all want, obviously, more information out. I don't mind to have more footage out there. I just hope it's just done in a way that's responsible.

Congressman Garcia, thank you.

Thank you.