George Santos probed by House Ethics panel: Kevin McCarthy

The House Ethics Committee is looking into lying Long Island Rep. George Santos, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy confirmed Tuesday.

“Ethics is moving through, and if ethics finds something, we’ll take action,” McCarthy (R-Calif.) told CNN. “Right now, we’re not allowing him to be on committees from the standpoint of the questions that have arisen.”

Later, McCarthy said that he has “new questions” about the freshman lawmaker, but declined to elaborate.The speaker has previously stood by the scandal-scarred congressman, saying the voters elected Santos on Nov. 8.

McCarthy said last month that “if anything is found to have been wrong, he will be held accountable exactly as anybody else in this body would be.”

Santos, 34, a Republican, has been hit with at least two ethics complaints over his admitted fabrications about his background, education, religion, and charitable work — while federal investigators are reportedly examining whether he violated campaign finance law.

Despite the several controversies swirling around him — including a recent sexual harassment complaint by a prospective staffer, Santos has vowed to remain in office until the next election in 2024.

Santos told CNN that he is “not concerned” about the ethics investigation. When asked about the possibility of his constituents coming to Washington to demand he be booted from Congress, Santos said he would welcome them and denied the protests would be a distraction. 

“You’re saying that the freedom of speech of my constituents is a distraction to my work?” Santos said. “Do you think people are a distraction to the work I’m doing here?”

Democratic Reps. Dan Goldman, who represents parts of Brooklyn and Lower Manhattan, and Richie Torres of the Bronx filed an ethics complaint against Santos in early January, just days after the serial fabulist was sworn in. 

Their letter to the House Ethics Committee said Santos misled voters in his Queens and Nassau County district about his work history, education, family history and his religion. 

They also raised red flags about possible violations of campaign finance law, focusing on the more than $700,000 Santos loaned his campaign even though he reported an annual salary of $55,000 as recently as 2020.

“At a minimum, it is apparent that he did not file timely disclosure reports for his most recent campaign. Moreover, his own public statements have contradicted some information included in the 2022 financial disclosure and confirmed that the 2022 financial disclosure failed to disclose other required information,” Goldman and Torres wrote.

Santos is also facing accusations from Derek Myers, a former assistant, that the congressman groped him and invited him home.

Myers, who said he secretly recorded Santos admitting that he “lied to everyone,” alleged he was hired by the lawmaker as an assistant on Jan. 23, and two days later the two were in his Capitol Hill office sorting through the mail. 

He contends Santos put his hands on his knee and invited him to karaoke.

“I kindly declined the invitation by telling the Congressman I was not a fan of clubs and bars and that I was not a good singer. The Congressman proceeded to take his hand and move it down my leg into my inner thigh and proceeded to touch my groin,” Myers, 30, said in the complaint to the Office of Congressional Ethics. 

Santos then told him, “My husband is out of town tonight if you want to come over.”

The Campaign Legal Center, a liberal watchdog group, also filed a complaint against Santos last month, alleging that he improperly used campaign funds for personal expenses and likely worked in cahoots with corporations, foreign governments and others to feed money to his campaign’s coffers. 

The group noted in its complaint with the Federal Election Commission, that Santos’ campaign recorded dozens of expenditures at $199.99 – one cent below the threshold required by the FEC to be itemized. 

Its filing says the number of expenditures was “statistically implausible” and claimed Santos “deliberately falsified” his reporting. 

Santos admitted to The Post in December that he falsified large parts of his resume, including that he never worked at Goldman Sachs and Citigroup, or graduated from Baruch College, or said he was Jewish – claiming instead that he described himself as “Jew-ish.”