House Republicans voted to gut the House Ethics Committee, and George Santos said it was 'fantastic'

House Republicans voted Monday to hobble the Office of Congressional Ethics.

The body will likely be limited in carrying out investigations because of staffing shortages.

George Santos, facing multiple investigations and ethics complaints, called the changes "fantastic."

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The House of Representatives Monday passed a new set of rules to govern the chamber that will severely weaken the ability of the Office of Congressional Ethics to investigate members of Congress over suspicion of wrongdoing.

"I think it's fantastic," Republican Rep. George Santos of New York said of the rules package, which passed by a 220-213 margin, in a brief interview with Insider Monday at the Capitol.

The changes came just days after Santos — who was reported by multiple news outlets to have lied about much of his background, is under investigation in multiple countries, and faces at least two Office of Congressional Ethics complaints related to his financial disclosures — was sworn into Congress.

"The proposed rules package severely curtails the ability of OCE to do the job it exists to do," a constellation of good-government groups wrote in a letter published January 4.

The Office of Congressional Ethics, established in 2008, is a quasi-independent body tasked with investigating allegations of misconduct against members of Congress. It then makes a determination as to whether those allegations are worth investigating further, at which point it makes a referral to the House Ethics Committee, which is evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats.

But the rules package for the 118th Congress, put forward by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, reimposes eight-year term limits for the Office of Congressional Ethics' board members, made up of former members of Congress, that were laid out when the office was established and later extended in subsequent Congresses.

The practical effect of that will be the immediate removal of three of four Democratic-appointed board members: former Reps. Mike Barnes, Belinda Pinckney, and Karan English. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries can appoint their replacements, but that could take months.

Furthermore, the rules prevent the office from hiring new staff after one month and require four board members to sign off on any staffing decision. That means the office, which has just one investigative counsel on staff and is actively seeking to hire two more, likely won't have enough time to hire new staff or be able to fill any vacancies that might come in the next two years.

Taken together, the rules will make it extraordinarily difficult for the body — which otherwise operates independently of Congress and has generally appeared more effective at investigating allegations of wrongdoing than the self-policing ethics committees in the House or Senate — to have resources it needs to carry out its work.

That means less ability to investigate allegations of wrongdoing and more time needed to carry out investigations.

But Santos, who has declined to comment on the myriad scandals surrounding him, disagreed with the idea that the office would be weakened by the rules.

"I think it just gives them more power," he said.

He added that the rules wouldn't "allow people to sit there without term limits," apparently referring to the board members. "I believe in term limits," he said.

He also brushed off the staffing restrictions, saying they would allow "new members of the board to pick their discretionary members" without acknowledging that all this must happen in just 30 days.

"It's a good thing for transparency. It's a good thing for Americans," Santos said. "Renewal."

House Democrats condemned the changes Monday in interviews with Insider at the Capitol.

"I don't understand how anyone interprets the results of the midterms to say we need less ethics standards," Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna of California said. "I have a lot of respect for the Office of Congressional Ethics. I think they've operated in a way that is fair, bipartisan, fact-based, and they there's no justification for doing this."

Democratic Rep. Abigail Spanberger of Virginia — who told Insider in a statement the rules package would render the office a "toothless body in a forgotten hallway of the Capitol complex" — didn't rule out seeking to change the rules via legislation.

The Office of Congressional Ethics has allowed for public accountability of several members of Congress during the past two years.

The body made referrals for several Republicans related to STOCK Act violations, led to significant fines for former Rep. Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina for improperly promoting a cryptocurrency, and referred a case against Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to the House Ethics Committee.

Ocasio-Cortez also condemned the rules changes, saying it was a "disturbing development," while declining to comment on her ethics case, though she alluded to "spurious claims" filed against Democrats.

"It does call into question if they're just going to remove it every time they're in the majority," Ocasio-Cortez said.

McCarthy's office did not immediately respond to a detailed set of questions from Insider seeking an explanation of the changes.

In 2017, House Republicans voted in conference to subsume the office under the House Ethics Committee, effectively neutering it. But they reversed course when President Donald Trump tweeted his opposition.