If Democrats have their way, Rep. George Santos (R-NY) will join two felons and three Confederate sympathizers in being expelled from the House of Representatives. It just won’t happen yet.
An effort to expel Santos from Congress was tabled via procedural motion on Wednesday by a party line vote of 221 to 204 with seven Democrats abstaining.
On Tuesday, Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA) introduced a resolution that would have ousted Santos from Congress if it received the two-thirds majority vote required by the Constitution. It would be an unprecedented action. After all, while Santos is under federal indictment, he has not been convicted of a felony in the United States nor does he have any known ties to the Confederate States of America. The two most recent members of the House to be expelled, Michael “Ozzie” Myers of Pennsylvania and James Traficant of Ohio, were both booted after being convicted of felonies and refusing to resign. Myers had been convicted of taking bribes for his role in the Abscam scandal in the late 1970s, while Traficant was convicted on 10 counts of corruption in 2002.
Speaking to Vox about the resolution Tuesday, Garcia argued that Santos’s situation is unique because his lies were instrumental to his election to Congress. “He got elected by laying out a series of claims, none of which are really true. I mean, lie after lie after lie.” However, Garcia emphasized that Santos had accepted a plea deal in Brazil last week over decade-old allegations that he had passed bad checks. “I think the big difference here is that he has already admitted to serious crimes. And there has never in the history of Congress been a liar like George Santos. This is a completely different level,” said Garcia.
However, Santos’s critics didn’t all seem to agree that the Brazilian case was necessary for Santos to warrant expulsion. In a press conference Wednesday about the resolution, Rep Daniel Goldman (D-NY), a former federal prosecutor,…
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