Raising A Question of the Privileges of the House

Floor Speech

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Mr. LAWLER. Mr. Speaker, last week, I joined my colleague, Anthony D'Esposito, in introducing a resolution to expel disgraced former Congressman George Santos. It was warranted. It was warranted because he defrauded the voters and defrauded donors, and he is facing a 23- count indictment.

He did not belong in Congress. I was willing to take on a member of my own party and reduce our majority by one because he was unfit to serve.

Now, as a Congressman from the 17th District of New York, I share Westchester County with Mr. Bowman. I have gotten to know Mr. Bowman throughout the course of my tenure here in Congress. We have even flown home together to Westchester County Airport.

What happened on September 30 was wrong. I am sure he is embarrassed. He should be. As a former middle school principal, he understands the difference between a locked door and a fire alarm. To suggest that somehow he was confused is laughable.

As the video evidence shows, he did push the door, and being locked, it didn't open. Nonetheless, he then took down the signs. He threw one on the ground, carried one, walked over to the fire alarm on the wall, and pulled the fire alarm. It didn't say: Pull to exit. It didn't say: In case of a locked door, pull the fire alarm and the door will open.

No. It said: In case of emergency, pull fire alarm.

He then proceeded to throw the other sign on the ground, and he ran past seven--one, two, three, four, five, six, seven--Capitol Police officers and did not utter one word about accidently and embarrassingly pulling a fire alarm.

In fact, when the BOLO went out and the Capitol Police came to question him about it, he lawyered up. He then went and met with Leader Jeffries.

That is not taking accountability right away. That is not taking responsibility. In fact, a few days after it happened, he called me directly to ask me: Please don't get on a censure or an expulsion resolution.

I said to him: I will not do anything until I hear from the Capitol Police as to what happened.

He told me: Oh, I won't be charged. They are dismissing it. I didn't do anything.

They ended up referring it to prosecutors. He was charged, and he pled guilty.

I don't think he should be expelled. I think what he did was wrong. I don't think it was an accident. It was absolutely done to disrupt a proceeding as the Democrats were pulling all sorts of stunts that day, including walking single file in to vote by paper even though they all had their electronic voting cards. Hakeem Jeffries was doing his magic minute. We all know what it was.

Let's be honest. Let's take accountability here.

If you are taking accountability, then you should actually tell your colleagues: Do you know what? I did wrong. I accept the censure.

Instead, you are sitting there smirking and laughing. I don't think your constituents think it is funny. In fact, I know they don't think it is funny because of the number of times I get calls from your constituents.

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Mr. LAWLER. The number of times I get calls from your constituents and the amount of time my office gets inundated with requests from your constituents, like when you shut your office down for 2 weeks in August--all the offices shut down. Do you know how many cases we had to take on? Calls came from Jewish constituents who don't feel that they can go to you for help.

They don't think it is funny. The people of Westchester County don't think it is funny.

Mr. Speaker, I encourage all of my colleagues to vote in favor of this censure.

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