Source: NBC
New York Representative George Santos claims he knows he will be expelled from the House during a X Spaces, a conservative social media, live stream. A bipartisan investigative group found Santos guilty of misusing campaign funds for a variety of personal purposes including but not limited to luxury stores, adult websites, and cosmetic procedures, then made the campaign to file false or incomplete reports.
Source: CBS
A resolution started by Rep. Michael Guest, who acted as the Chairman of the Ethics Committee and Mississippi Republican, has been introduced to the house. Santos responded calling Guest an obscenity and saying he would not resign believing the report to be a political opposition hit piece at best.
During a three-hour livestream, Santos accuses his congressional colleagues of much worse misconduct, such as voting while drunk or adultery. Santos accuses his former colleagues of bias claiming this precedent, referring to the ethics committee investigation, means you are guilty until proven innocent and will take accusations and use it “to smear, to mangle, to destroy you and remove you from society.”
When Rep. Robert Garcia, a Democrat from California, pressed Santos on why he wouldn’t resign, Santos responded saying he hasn’t been found guilty of anything.
Sources:
8 comments:
Unfortunately, I do not believe he will be expelled from the House. The last time Santos faced expulsion (last month), only 179 of the 435 House members actually voted in favor of expulsion. Interestingly, 31 Democrats were against the vote while 24 Republicans voted to expel him. I can not imagine any world where the House of Representatives gather a supermajority (290/435 votes) to expel him.
Source:
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/house-vote-whether-expel-rep-george-santos-congress-rcna122521
I would actually tend to favor the idea that there's a good chance Santos will be expelled. I'm not too clear on the details of the last report, but I believe that a lot of the evidence before was based on media reports and "unproven criminal charges" whereas this time, the the House Ethics Committee found much more concrete and incriminating evidence that Santos has spent tens of thousands of dollars of political contributions, money that, as we learned in class, should have been spent on his campaign/platform/causes, on Botox, luxury goods, and even OnlyFans. It seems that with these new documents, support is shifting in favor of Santos's expulsion, and I personally would also agree--his actions are incredibly unethical, and I personally would also be pretty upset if money I had donated towards what I thought would press a political agenda in the favor of my interests was instead being spent on someone else's whims, not to mention the blatant lying.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/17/nyregion/santos-expel-house-election.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
While I definitely agree with the argument that nobody should be considered guilty before proven so, in this case, there is so much evidence against Santos that it is hard to argue for him. While Santos tries to put up a strong image by refusing to resign, he has stated that he will not be running again in 2024, which seems to admit his guilt in this regard. Santos himself has said that he expects to be expelled, which is significant considering the two-thirds majority required to do so.
However, I do want to call you out a little bit, as you called X a “conservative social media.” While some would argue that this is the case after Elon Musk purchased the company, he often emphasizes X’s promise of free speech, which inherently makes the platform nonpartisan. For this reason, I would try to avoid placing such a label on X, as this makes your reporting more bias than fact and may taint the reader's interpretation of the given information.
I would lean to the side of Santos not getting expelled in the next house vote purely because if Santos does get expelled, there will obviously be a large amount of bad press not just for Santos but for campaigns and the government in general. I think some house members feel that if Santos does get expelled, the bad press resulting from that could make the public less trusting of the government and government officials. Since Santos will be gone by the next election cycle and house members are people too so they do look out for self-interest just like everyone else, I think there will be enough house members to vote against expulsion and just wait for the next election cycle for Santos to no longer be part of the house.
Rereading this post after Santos was expelled from the House, the result seems almost obvious in hindsight. He repeatedly accused other house members of misconduct, which could have the effect of damaging their reputation unless they voted to expel him. Additionally, claiming that he knew he would be expelled doesn't encourage other representatives to stay on his good side, because they know that soon he won't hold any sway within the House.
Three days ago, George Santos was expelled from the House of Representatives. Expelling a house member requires a 2/3rd supermajority vote and I'm very pleased that it succeeded. I find the story of George Santos absolutely ridiculous and extremely hilarious. I possibly cannot fathom how this man has lied about every single aspect of his life to get a seat of the House of Representatives just to be found out to be a complete and utter fraud and embarrassment. One of the most astoundingly horrific stories I have heard about one of his lies was setting up a goFund me for a veteran and his dog that had cancer and didn't give the veteran the money and took it instead. In our recent project in AP gov where we learned of certain job requirements, I believe that being 25 years old and certain citizenship requirements for running as a HOR is not enough and that there should be more thorough background checks into someone's record as well as morepre-requisites required to avoid people like George Santos lying and deceiving their way through the halls of Congress and doing a disservice to the American people.
I didn't think that Santos would get expelled either, but as of today, Santos was expelled from the house on December 1. This was surprising because, as Janus mentioned earlier, he would need a supermajority, 60% of votes, to expel him. As we have learned throughout AP Gov, Congress in general, is very diverse in their personal ideologies. Because of this, it is almost impossible to obtain a supermajority (passing new laws isn't any easier). Chapter 11 of the textbook talks about how members of Congress are politicos, so they adopt both trustee and instructed delegate roles. Therefore in this scenario, I believe they would act as a trustee even if there are many representatives who find him unfit for the job. The couple other hundred could find him a good match which wouldn't lead to his expulsion. Even though I didn't expect Santos to get expelled, I am glad he did.
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