Their Majority Is Too Narrow To Dump Him
All New York’s fake “moderate” GOP incumbents— Long Islanders Nick LaLota, Anthony D’Esposito and Andrew Garbarino, plus Upstaters Mike Lawler, Marc Molinaro and Brandon Williams— showed no compunctions about voting for far right extremist MAGA Mike Johnson to be speaker. And now, fearing they may be in trouble with their swing district voters, some of them are proposing a resolution to expel another MAGAt, George Santos, a resolution all of them already voted against last time it was proposed. CBS News is reporting that the formal expulsion resolution could come today or tomorrow, just us Santos is being arraigned on new charges of fraud for emptying contributors’ bank accounts. Anthony D'Esposito— whose district voted for Biden by nearly 15%— and Nick LaLota— whose district also went for Biden by much more narrowly— are taking point on the resolution.
CBS reported that LaLota told them that “he's looking for co-sponsors for the expulsion resolution. He said he expected momentum will build quickly for the measure, with the reopening of the House floor to business and proceedings. ‘It's all organic,’ he said. ‘Everybody knows the facts of the case. The facts are not good for Santos. That's why I expect Democrats and Republicans to remove him as soon as possible.’ Rep. Marc Molinaro, a Republican who represents a district in New York's Hudson Valley, said he expects a quick timetable for a vote on the measure. He told CBS News, ‘George Santos is a liar and a fraud who should not be a member of Congress. Since he won't resign and with the House Ethics Committee not moving at the pace we had hoped, we're adjusting our approach and pushing forward a resolution to expel him.’ Rep Brandon Williams, a New York Republican who represents a district near Syracuse, told CBS News, that earlier this year he predicted ‘we would see George Santos in front of a judge in handcuffs. That prediction and belief is becoming clearer every day,’ he went on to say. ‘It's time for Santos to go.’”
The problem here is that it takes a nearly impossible two-thirds to expel a member. GOP extremists like Marjorie Traitor Greene and Matt Gaetz, both of whom have befriended Gaetz, will whip against it and threaten Republicans in MAGA districts who want to vote for it. This would put many Republicans in precarious, damned if you do, damned if you don’t, positions. Cool!
Meanwhile, Santos, who claimed that the Chinese Communist Party kidnapped his niece (who wasn’t kidnapped but who does like egg rolls), told Meghan McCain that, regarding his vote against drag queens that “It's not that I'm anti-drag queen. I love drag queens. I love drag queens so much that, hey, guess what, when I was 18 years old in Carnival I dressed in drag.” McCain asked Kitara if he saw Meatball's parody performance, in which the entertainer sang Keala Settle's "This Is Me" while transforming from a suited Santos into Kitara while on stage at RuPaul’s Drag Race in February. “I did see the video,” Santos said. "It's hysterical. My husband hates it— he just thinks it's a mockery. I'm like, 'No, this is great. This is good content.' It's flattering. I thought it was hilarious. I thought Meatball did a great job.” On Wednesday, Santos— like the rest of the Republicans— voted for virulent homophobe MAGA Mike Johnson, who condemned same sex marriages— like Santos’— in no uncertain terms.
UPDATE: Only In The GOP
Today, Santos will be spending time at the courthouse in Central Islip pleading not guilty to, what U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, Breon Peace, termed “stealing people’s identities and making charges on his own donors’ credit cards without their authorization, lying to the FEC and, by extension, the public about the financial state of his campaign… [and] falsely inflating the campaign’s reported receipts with non-existent loans and contributions that were either fabricated or stolen.” What Santos will be pleading not guilty to today is “one count of conspiracy to commit offenses against the United States, two counts of wire fraud, two counts of making materially false statements to the Federal Election Commission (FEC), two counts of falsifying records submitted to obstruct the FEC, two counts of aggravated identity theft, and one count of access device fraud.”