As recently as last weekend, we were being assured that there would be a vote today in the House regarding the potential expulsion of New York Representative (for now) George Santos from the chamber. Facing 23 federal charges ranging from campaign finance fraud to tax violations to theft, it was still unclear as to whether or not there would be enough votes to reach the 2/3 requirement even if all of the Democrats favored it, but there was clearly an appetite to give it a try. But by last night, the situation seemed to have changed. Despite the rest of Santos’ own New York Congressional delegation pushing for his ouster, some GOP leaders seemed to be leaning back toward holding off for a while longer. And the reason for that was an announcement from the House Ethics Committee, saying they were wrapping up their investigation and would release their findings by November 17th. (CBS News)

The House Ethics Committee said Tuesday it will announce its “next course of action” in its investigation into embattled Rep. George Santos by Nov. 17.

The update from committee leaders comes ahead of a possible floor vote on a resolution to expel the New York Republican from Congress as federal charges against him accumulate.

House Ethics chairman Michael Guest of Mississippi and the panel’s top Democrat, Rep. Susan Wild of Pennsylvania, said investigators have contacted about 40 witnesses, reviewed more than 170,000 pages of documents and authorized 37 subpoenas. They said the investigation has taken “countless hours” and involved “a significant amount” of resources.

This doesn’t mean that the House can’t still schedule a vote at any time if the New Speaker agrees to bring it to the floor. The committee’s announcement is just a scheduling item and has no impact on the decision. But the news does give some wiggle room to GOP leaders who are nervous about losing yet another vote and decreasing their razor-thin majority just as they’re preparing to head into some fraught negotiations over keeping the government open, foreign aid, and other agenda items.

The Democrats moved to expel Santos almost immediately after the full scandal broke, but the GOP opted to turn the matter over to the Ethics Committee for a resolution. That bought them quite a bit of time, and now it might buy them a couple of more weeks, but the clock is almost at midnight. Nobody really wants this guy around except possibly some Democrats who see him as a welcome media distraction from their own problems. His fellow New York Republicans were back today pushing for an immediate vote.

I suppose we technically still have to say that George Santos is innocent until proven guilty, but it almost seems like a waste of breath at this point. He continues to maintain his innocence, but the mountain of evidence against him from the federal investigation looks almost insurmountable. Back when he was simply found to have lied about many things on his resume and fabricated tales of his financial success, it was still possible to sort of look the other way. After all, a politician being caught lying is a classic dog-bites-man story.

But now they’re discussing proof of not only violating campaign finance laws but stealing from donors using their personal credit card information. That constitutes both robbery and identity theft. And the feds have more charges on top of that. It’s all become far too much to ignore. With no opportunity to pick up another seat anywhere else in the immediate future, this could turn out to be painful for the House GOP. But it would at least send a statement that they are taking ethical issues seriously and allow them to turn around and ask the Senate Democrats what they plan to do about Bob Menendez.