Rep. George Santos (D-N.Y.) is expected to face another expulsion vote this week, and Santos himself expects that he will be ousted this time.
Santos has already admitted to lying about his background and currently faces multiple federal charges — for which he has pleaded not guilty. Several Republicans who voted against expulsion are now signaling that they will vote to expel him following the release of an incriminating Ethics Committee report that claims there’s evidence Santos "violated federal criminal laws.”
"He blatantly stole from his campaign. He deceived donors into providing what they thought were contributions to his campaign but were in fact payments for his personal benefit. He reported fictitious loans to his political committees to induce donors and party committees to make further contributions to his campaign—and then diverted more campaign money to himself as purported 'repayments' of those fictitious loans," the report claimed.
Santos announced after the release of the report that he would not seek reelection.
Democrats have been making a big show out of their efforts to expel Santos, but let’s not mistake what’s happening for what this situation really is. Democrats aren’t outraged that Santos lied about his background during his campaign. Heck, if they were so triggered by liars, they’d have no caucus.
Honesty isn’t a value of the Democratic Party. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) has never faced the wrath of his party despite having repeatedly lied for years during his early political career that he served in Vietnam.
Joe Biden’s entire life story is fiction. He’s falsely claimed to have been arrested in South Africa because he went to see Nelson Mandela, said he was a professor despite only holding an honorary position, and lied that he was in Israel during the Six-Day War. He also falsely attributed the death of his first wife and daughter to a drunk driver and even claimed that his house nearly burned down with his wife inside. Even worse, he has claimed multiple times that his son Beau died in combat in Iraq.
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As for the Ethics Committee report, they were calling for Santos to resign or be expelled before the report came out, so this isn’t about the federal charges either. Besides, Democrats have voted for, elected, and reelected rapists, crooks, pedophiles, racists, and murderers in the past.
They just see an opportunity to oust a Republican who won a seat they hated to lose. Santos won election in 2022, flipping a blue seat red in an otherwise disappointing midterm election for the Republican Party and helping to insulate the GOP's slim majority. The only reason Democrats are making an example out of Santos is to make the Republicans' already slim majority even slimmer.
It is easier to believe that their intentions aren’t political, but Democrats have a history of doing nothing to hold any of the liars and criminals in their caucus accountable — certainly not when the balance of power comes into play. Former Rep. John Conyers did resign amid multiple sexual harassment allegations back in 2017, but his resignation had virtually no impact on House business, as Republicans had a significant majority at the time.
Meanwhile, plenty of Republicans have called for Santos to resign, despite their slim majority, and enough are apparently willing to be pawns in the Democrats' scheme. Why? I have no idea.
