Rep. George Santos spent what may very well be his final day in Congress on Thursday hanging a defiant stance and taunting those that may vote to expel him.
As House Speaker Mike Johnson punted the expulsion vote for Mr. Santos to Friday, Mr. Santos accused his congressional foes of bullying him after which made a transfer to expel Rep. Jamaal Bowman from Congress for his conviction for pulling a hearth alarm within the Capitol complicated.
“If the House wants to start different precedents and expel me, that is going to be the undoing of a lot of members of this body,” Mr. Santos stated at a press convention. “Because this will haunt them in the future where mere allegations are sufficient to have members removed from office when duly elected by their people in their respective states and districts.”
Mr. Santos has been rendered persona non grata in Congress for making outrageous lies to voters, getting rebuked by the Ethics Committee and hit with legal prices of marketing campaign finance shenanigans.
However, his expulsion is way from assured on Friday. It will take a two-thirds majority vote to oust him and a few Republicans have vowed to oppose the transfer on precept.
A number of of his Republican friends have come out towards expulsion.
Those lawmakers together with Reps. Matt Gaetz of Florida, Troy Nehls of Texas and Clay Higgins of Louisiana. They argued on the House ground that voting to take away Mr. Santos goes towards the grain of centuries of precedent and circumvents due course of.
“I rise not to defend George Santos, whoever he is, but to defend the very precedent that my colleagues are willing to shatter,” Mr. Gaetz stated.
Shortly after his election in 2020, Mr. Santos was found to have lied to voters about nearly all the things about his life and his {qualifications}.
Those discoveries, and ensuing investigations, have led to the lawmaker being hit with 23 federal prices for wire fraud, theft of public funds and cash laundering, amongst others. He has pleaded not responsible and has not been convicted of any crimes.
Only 5 members of Congress have been expelled from the establishment: three for being part of the Confederacy throughout the Civil War, and two who had been convicted earlier than getting the boot.
Mr. Santos argued that he could be the one member expelled with no conviction or with out committing treason if the vote on Friday was profitable.
Rep. Anthony D’Esposito, New York Republican, counted on the vote to just do that.
“We continually hear that the expulsion of Congressman Santos would set a new precedent, and Mr. Speaker, it would,” he stated.
A bruising House Ethics Committee report teed up this third try to kick Mr. Santos out of Congress and seemingly modified the minds of dozens of Republican lawmakers who beforehand voted to save lots of Mr. Santos.
Mr. Johnson has not pressed lawmakers to vote towards the invoice, as a substitute advising them to vote with their conscience.
Mr. Santos additionally will get no quarter from House Democrats.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, New York Democrat, referred to as foul on Mr. Santos’ try to expel Mr. Bowman — ought to the disgraced lawmaker be booted, his invoice will both die or be picked up by one other member.
Mr. Jeffries questioned why Mr. Santos was “still around.” and accused House Republicans of deliberately hiding data on the lawmaker that later turned public, just like the intensive falsification of his background.
“Why? Because House Republicans needed George Santos’ vote,” Mr. Jeffries stated.
Losing Mr. Santos would imply the GOP majority would fall to 221 or simply 4 votes. Republican Rep. Bill Johnson of Ohio has stated he’ll depart Congress quickly to just accept a brand new job as a school president, which might lower the GOP‘s margin to a few votes.
