If you get your George Santos news from DWT and you;’ve been following the whole sordid year-long saga on the blog, you probably think I agree with the D’Esposito-LaLota privileged resolution to force a floor vote this week on expelling poor Kitara. First off, I absolutely want to see that vote, which MAGA Mike Johnson has already come out again. I want to see it because it will put Republicans on the record, for or against, sticking with a guy who used credit card numbers from his campaign contributors to steal money from their bank accounts. Think of the position it puts closet-MAGAts like— for example— Ken Calvert (R-CA), Tom Kean (R-NJ), David Valadao (R-CA) and John James (R-MI)— in. Caught between a rock and a very hard place
But expel Santos? Oh, no… I’m not for that. I want him hanging around the necks of congressional Republicans for as long as possible. His trial is set for September, 2024… just when most people start paying attention to the elections. As if it wasn’t bad enough that he even exists as a Republican congressman, the fact that incumbent x— YOUR Congress Member if you live in a swing district— voted to keep him in Congress… Oh, the ads that can be run in swing districts against people like David Schweikert (R-AZ), John Duarte (R-CA), Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA), Rob Whitman (R-VA), Lori Chavez-DeRemer (R-OR), Monica De La Cruz (R-TX), Donald Bacon (R-NE), Young Kim (R-CA), David Valadao (R-CA), AndyOgles (R-TN), Bill Huizenga (R-MI), Mike Turner (R-OH), Bryan Steil (R-WI), Maria Salazar (R-FL), Scott Perry (R-PA), Zach Nunn (R-IA)… Or maybe they’ll offend their district’s MAGAts, so that enough of them, just vote for Señor T and then go home. Yummy.
But yesterday Paul Kane delineated a reasonable argument for Republicans to not vote to expel and come out of it smelling like a rose. Kane notes that “some politically endangered Republicans from Santos’ neighboring districts, tired of being tied to the embarrassing freshman, plan to force an expulsion vote to the full House.” Then he warns that “During the more than 230 years of congressional history, just five members have been expelled by the House: three for disloyalty to the Union during the Civil War and two in the last 45 years after they had been convicted in federal court in felony corruption cases.”
“Santos,” he reminded his readers, “has not been charged with treason, nor has he been convicted of a crime— not yet anyway. In addition, an ongoing Ethics Committee investigation is just that: ongoing.” Kane worries that an expulsion vote not only sets a bad precedent but is “part of a growing effort to bypass anything resembling a legitimate investigative process. Instead, it moves straight to empaneling the entire House to serve as instant prosecutors, judges and juries for misdeeds that would probably be better served with a somber and, yes, slow-moving investigation from the ethics panel.”
It’s absolutely silly to think— let alone write— that the House Ethics Committee has even the slightest relationship to “ a somber” investigate process. The Committee is a pathetic joke and everyone in Washington knows that. How long have they been “investigating” Matt Gaetz’s sex trafficking?
[S]tarting in 2021, when Democrats censured Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) after he posted violent videos showing animated videos of him attacking lawmakers, the House has practically turned into a censure-on-demand palace.
No investigation took place— just an instant, near party-line vote to offer the highest form of punishment short of expulsion. A dozen or two of Gosar’s closest conservative allies stood in the well of the House alongside him as a show of defiance when the charges against him were read in public.
Republicans returned the favor in June when they censured Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), whom they had already voted to remove from the House Intelligence Committee, for his actions investigating then-President Trump late last decade. Nearly 100 Democrats gathered in the well with Schiff, shouting down then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) as he read the charges into the record.
Rather than creating a sense of shame, these instant censures just add to the sense of political celebrity in the effort to gain attention. Schiff, who is now running for the Senate, has been open about how that censure helped boost his already hefty campaign account.
Not long ago— even though it sometimes feels like decades ago— misbehaving Republicans and Democrats alike used to feel political heat under the speakerships of Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), John Boehner (R-OH) and Paul Ryan (R-WI).
Former congressman Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) resigned in 2011 after a social media sex scandal. Former House member Chris Lee (R-NY) resigned earlier that year when he was caught soliciting extramarital partners online. And former lawmaker Mark Souder (R-IN) resigned in 2010 after having an affair with an aide.
Onetime congressman Vito Fossella (R-NY) was arrested while driving drunk in the Virginia suburbs, telling police he was on his way to see his family— which turned out to be true, just not his family in Staten Island. His mistress and child lived out there. He resigned once it was all exposed.
“Members used to be able to feel shame,” [former Rep Charlie] Dent lamented.
Now, outlandish behavior gets attention, and party leaders have less ability to force lawmakers to resign. And the other party, driven by the instantaneous news cycle of revenge, doesn’t have the patience to file an ethics complaint and wait the year or more required for an investigation.
Santos’s situation presents the most difficult of all. He has lost whatever credibility he might have had at the start of the year, when he was known merely as a serial fabulist, as an investigation has unearthed charges of serious criminal behavior.
The federal judge set his trial for next September, meaning a verdict wouldn’t be likely until later in the fall. By then he will have almost run out the clock and served a full term in Congress, even as his chances of winning his party’s nomination have shrunk to nonexistent.
Despite pledges from McCarthy of a speedy Ethics Committee probe, there’s no hint of when that will end [or even begin]. And much of the panel’s work will likely sidestep the criminal behavior under the purview of the Justice Department, to not interfere with that federal inquiry.
The slow-moving pace has driven a group of New York Republicans, all in the same media market as Santos and all in politically tough districts, to the breaking point. They don’t want to be associated with him anymore and want him gone, sooner rather than later.
When they broached their plan to force an expulsion vote in a few days, new House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) told them privately that they should do whatever is in their best political interest.
“Do what’s right and do what’s right for back home,” Johnson said, according to the account several of the Republicans gave to reporters after filing the motion on Thursday.
There’s a problem with that. Expulsion from Congress simply is not intended to alleviate political pain.
A conservative constitutional lawyer by training, Johnson appeared to realize that later Thursday night in his first interview as speaker, telling Fox News that Santos did deserve “due process.”
“If we’re going to expel people from Congress just because they’re charged with a crime, or accused, that’s a problem,” he said.
The New Yorkers feel that a guilty plea from Santos’s treasurer serves as enough legal confirmation to warrant instant expulsion. “You have a guilty plea in court by his treasurer confirming significant details,” Rep. Michael Lawler (R-NY) said.
“You’re not dealing with somebody who is a rational human being,” Lawler added.
Rep. Anthony D’Esposito (R-NY) noted that McCarthy’s ouster as speaker, and the more than three weeks it took to find Johnson as his replacement, left the GOP caucus in an internal feud that left them leaderless.
That helped prompt their decision to force the Santos issue, D’Esposito told reporters. “We seem to settle a lot of family business in the House this week. This is one of those things that has gone on for too long, and it feels good that we’re making progress toward the resolution.”
And never forget, as virulent Louisiana homophobe MAGA Mike Johnson has told the House Republican conference, "It ain't over 'til the Fat Lady sings"
