WASHINGTON – Rep. George Santos (R-NY) – pathological liar turned pay-to-play politician, if federal prosecutors are to be believed – has treated the nation’s capital as his political playpen since becoming a congressman in January. Playtime seems to be over though.
The credibly accused fraudster could be hitting the proverbial exits as soon as 8 a.m. Thursday, when he’s scheduled to conduct a press conference on the Capitol steps.
Some will cheer, but if anything, Santos’ departure is primarily leaving confusion, chaos and in-fighting in his wake. In this town, that means he’ll be missed, whether he resigns or whether his House colleagues formally boot him, which the House appears set to do Friday, with or without his assistance. Democrats love to hate him, as do some Republicans. Other GOPers simply love what he offers, despite his troubles.
“He's a funny guy. He's got a hell of a personality, quite honestly,” Rep. Troy Nehls (R-TX) told Raw Story. “Now, if he's got some issues with his history and his past, he's gonna have to face the music, so to speak, but I have had no issues with him up here. I think, if some of the allegations are true, he's gonna have to pay for it, but I ain't doing it before he's convicted.”
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The tides turned for Santos right before Thanksgiving when his colleagues on the House Ethics Committee dropped a scathing, 56-page report alleging he used campaign cash to pay for Botox, trips to Las Vegas, Airbnb bookings, gambling in Atlantic City and a subscription to adult content website OnlyFans.
That report came six months after the Department of Justice issued a 13-count indictment of Santos over alleged wire fraud, money laundering, theft of public funds and “making materially false statements to the House of Representatives.”
Santos, whose wealthy New York District 3 includes much of northwestern Long Island, declined to comment for this story.
“This expulsion vote simply undermines and underscores the precedent that we’ve had in this chamber,” Santos told his colleagues on the House floor Tuesday. “It starts and puts us in a new direction. A dangerous one that sets a very dangerous precedent for the future.”
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Through it all, many Republican leaders have stood by Santos, or at least advocated against Congress removing him from office. Only five members of the U.S. House have ever been expelled. None have been removed without first being convicted of a crime (Rep. Michael Myers in 1980 and Rep. James Traficant in 2002) or found — in 1861 — to be fighting for the Confederate States of America.
Newly minted House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has told the congressional press corps he has “real reservations” about expelling Santos — sentiment in line with other G.O.P. leaders.
“I’ve put out a number of public statements throughout this process, I don’t have any update for you,” Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) – the number four Republican leader in the House – told Raw Story earlier today.
“As I’ve said, from the very beginning on questions on this subject, this legal process is going to play itself out,” Stefanik said in May. “Unfortunately, this is not the first time a member of Congress from either party has been indicted.”
While Stefanik is unwilling to speak out against Santos, some of her party’s rank-and-file are willing to say the quiet part out loud as they come to his defense.
“Everything's political up here, so we do have a four-seat majority, why reduce it by 25 percent? I don't think that's a very good idea, especially because the Democrats would never do it,” Nehls said.
For other Republicans, they say they can’t get past the fact Santos hasn’t yet been tried by a jury of his peers.
“Honestly, it’s just, has he been convicted or not,” Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) told Raw Story. “I mean, politically, it's the easiest, would be the greatest vote in the world for me to make back home. People are like, ‘Kick him out!.’ You know, I mean, people don't like the fact he's gay. You know, they got a list, but then you get all the criminal stuff and, you know, but he hasn't been convicted and I can't get past that.”
Stefanik’s Santos support has stood in stark contrast to other New York Republicans from competitive districts. They include Reps. Anthony D'Esposito, Mike Lawler, Nick LaLota, Marc Molinaro and Brandon Williams, who led a charge earlier this month to oust their fellow New Yorker.
GOP leaders such as Stefanik helped kill that effort, which took place before the House Ethics Committee released its report. But Rep. Michael Guest, a Republican from Mississippi, who is chairman of the Ethics Committee, is now a prime proponent of removing Santos.
“The evidence uncovered in the Ethics Committee’s Investigative Subcommittee investigation is more than sufficient to warrant punishment and the most appropriate punishment, is expulsion,” Guest wrote on Nov. 17.
Democrats overwhelmingly agree and say there’s little about Santos to debate, especially after the House Ethics Committee contacted 40 witnesses and reviewed upward of 170,000 pages of documentation.
“What the committee found was so obvious that he did wrong and so demonstrable, there's no reasonable doubt,” Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD) – the former House majority leader – told Raw Story.
Others are hoping a Santos departure will restore what little face the House still has left.
“I think him being part of the face of the institution is bad,” Rep. Dan Kildee (D-MI) told Raw Story.
Still, Kildee and others aren’t spiking any footballs.
“There's no positive. There's no upside to this. It’s not a good day, but it's perhaps a better day than another 400 days of him being a member of Congress,” Kildee said. “He brings down, sort of, the stature of the institution, for good reason. He's a caricature of all the things that are actually wrong that we should be able to fix.”
