Rep. George Santos expelled from Congress on bipartisan vote

jeffw@lemmy.world to politics @lemmy.world – 783 points –
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Let it be know that if you take office while actively committing fraud, embezzlement, and lying through your teeth about nearly every single detail of your life and accomplishments, the rest of Congress will ONLY let that slide for 11 months! You've been warned!

(Unless you’re elected President, in which case, bully for you!)

Let's be honest. None of those reasons mattered to his party. He got ousted because he cross dressed.

Proof: Trump

You mean:

... will ONLY pay you $159,500 with tax dollars. You've been warned!

Mike Johnson said "I personally have real reservations about doing this [expulsion], I’m concerned about a precedent that may be set for that." Yes, let's NOT set a precedent of holding politicians accountable for lies, fraud, and theft!

It should be pretty easy to find the list of everyone else who voted not to expel, so we know who is pro-corruption.

Four words: Innocent until proven guilty.

That's like a basic principle of a Rule of Law.

Congress did an internal investigation and determined he likely broke the law. There you go.

This is just like any other workplace.

The bar for losing your job as a congress person or any public servant for corruption should be way lower than the bar for being sent to prison.

He said this well after the Ethics Committee released its findings. Santos was effectively shown to be guilty.

In the previous attempts at expulsion, a lot of people voted against simply because the report wasn't out yet. It would have set a dangerous precedent to vote to expel someone without proof of wrongdoing.

He literally was just convicted in a trial by his peers. His explosion is exactly the basis for common law including many of the points of the magna carta.

Explosion? This whole event was way cooler than I initially thought.

including stealing money from his campaign, deceiving donors about how contributions would be used

I bet this was the real reason he was expelled. Congressmen rely on donations for their grift, and their donors were no doubt asking if they supported his practice.

Hell, he literally stole money from another Republican Congressman and his wife.

You almost have to respect it.

For how blatant his lies and fabrications were, and how brazenly he stole and misued money, I'm honestly impressed that he got into office in the first place (who tf was running his opponent's campaign?). Surviving 11 months after that was just standard "Republicans refusing to hold each other accountable" behavior. But man, gotta admit the guy pulled off a pretty decent con.

I’m honestly impressed that he got into office in the first place (who tf was running his opponent’s campaign?).

His opponent repeatedly tried to blow the whistle at what was going on with Santos' campaign, but was all but ignored by the media who considered it a low-level race not worth covering. I think it took about a month after the election before the media started to actually give a damn.

The GOP wants blackmail and leverage options, and only when they have the power.

Santos's lies were pretty clear, blatant, and he was grifting his own party. Useless as an asset, and detrimental to his own people.

He is from a safe very red district so the craziest person wins the primary and then basically gets in free after that.

It's a blue district, though only D+2 (meaning it tends to be 2 points more towards Dems than the national average). It did vote for Bush in 2004, but is otherwise straight blue for President since 1992. Most recently went for Biden by +10 points.

Republicans have historically held that seat with very large majorities. Over 70% during Bush and Obama presidencies. Trump was enough to drag it down but then as soon as he was off the ballot it's back to crazy land Republicans. I might be wrong but to me that says deep red.

I don't even think that deceiving donors was the line. I think it was exactly what he bought. OnlyFans? Scandalous. Botox for a man? Shameful. If he'd bought guns and an F350, or just Venmo'd a high school student, he'd still a congressman.

Friendly reminder that OnlyFans talking about banning porn on their platform was just a cover to distract from the news story about them allowing users hosting child porn, prostitution and other illegal material to get away with warnings, so long as their accounts were profitable.

While the child porn and other things is pretty bad, why include prostitution?

Because it's illegal to solicit prostitution in most countries. The other common illegal content was scat. That was the point of the exposé, to highlight that they were allowing illegal users making illegal content on their platform to get away with warnings - I mean, how can you merely warn someone who is underage that they should stop posting underage content?!

Fair enough, though it does still seem a bit odd to list prostitution in particular. Whats the joke? If you fuck while recording it it aint prostitution.

Exactly. It's like Bernie Madoff. Bernie was doing the same thing as everyone else in 2008, but his clients were all rich folks. He went to jail. The hilarious thing is that Donald Trump was interviewed about Bernie and even Donnie had to admit that it was mostly victimless, because everyone Madoff had stolen from could afford the loses.

Bernie is an interesting case. As part of his guilty plea, he admitted that from around 1990 onward, basically every transaction in his company was fraudulent. The actual start was probably at the beginning of his company in the '70s.

What makes that interesting is that his clients weren't just rich, but experienced. They knew how to smell out a con. He was able to keep his claims just plausible enough that they didn't notice for decades.

A lot of Ponzi schemes will claim 300% or 5000% percent returns in a year. Experienced investors know that's bullshit; maybe you can get lucky in one or two trades, but it's never sustainable. The SP500 will tend to give you returns of 8% or so in the long run (with plenty of year to year variation), and it's hard to beat that while accounting for transaction costs. Bernie was claiming 15-20%, which is good, but not crazy.

imho, they all knew it was a scam, but they all figured that they were the insiders and only the rubes were getting fleeced.

Bernie was doing the same thing as everyone else in 2008, but his clients were all rich folks.

CITATION NEEDED

Lots of companies were using legal but sketchy as hell financial instruments and over inflating safety on investments where lots of people lost lots of money. Bernie was different. He was creating fraudulent statements saying you had money in your account with him for years and only paying out with what other new investors put in; classic Ponzi scheme.

What other large Ponzi schemes at the time are you saying were occurring?

What other large Ponzi schemes at the time are you saying were occurring?

You're kidding, right?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007%E2%80%932008_financial_crisis

Of course, these weren't schemes or a rip off because it was 'legal.'

Yes. That's a fundamentally different situation than a ponzi scheme

Of course, these weren’t schemes or a rip off because it was ‘legal.’

Now you've got it. One was unethical but legal (most of the housing crisis), Madoff was breaking established written law. Only Madoff was the Ponzi scheme.

You should learn to recognize sarcasm.

I could have done that and called into question your naive understanding of financial transactions. However, I wanted to keep from insulting you, but it looks like you've removed that opportunity.

Shame on you for not laundering the money through a book deal!

Pffft, big whoop, he’ll go back to being CEO of Goldman-Sachs and owner of the Denver Broncos, this is barely a speedbump.

He's also an angel investor with the resurgence campaign of Glamour Shots

He's one of the founding members of the Beatles, he'll be ok

Jesus fucking Christ finally

**Took them long enough. But the bad thing about this is that it was at all.necessary. A criminal should not join the house, and if found out should immediately resign on his own. But he stuck to the seat and it took ages to get rid of him.

20 more...

311 to 114
The house has a Republican majority, you really have to fuck up for them to break the 11th commandment.

Funny story about Reagan and the '11th Commandment.'

Back in the day, a group of Dem women approached their GOP counterparts with a story about Nestle's Africa operations. Basically, Nestle was tricking poor women by giving away free formula to new mothers. The supply lasted until the mothers stopped lactating, then they had to pay full price. This meant that the babies were not getting enough food at the time they needed good nutrition the most.

The GOP women wanted the Party to stand up to Nestle, but Reagan talked thme down, and explained that conservatives shouldn't shaft one another.

Later on, Reagan attacked President Ford for sticking by the treaty that returned the Panama Canal. There was no way Ford could renege on the treaty, but it made Reagan look like a tough guy.

Ronnie was a hypocritical bastard?! Noooooooooooooo

Ohh, that news story in "For All Mankind" makes a lot more sense. Alternate timeline, we didn't give it back.

It was the 1980s version of 'The War On Christmas.' The treaty had been signed decades before, and handing over the Canal meant nothing strategically. WW3 wasn't going to be decided by a big naval battle. It was pure grandstanding, but Ronnie managed to orchestrate it to perfection

Santos broke the most important commandment:

Thou shall not fuck with wealthy people's money.

Nehls claimed, without evidence, that the Ethics Committee had been “weaponized” against Santos.

“You may accept this report as grounds for expulsion from Congress, but I say no,” Nehls said. “It’s not right. The totality of circumstance appears biased. It stinks of politics.”

Any amount of ethics will always be resisted by Republicans. 🙄

1 more...

In the entire history of the US, there have only been five ever expelled from the US House of Representatives. Three of those five that were expelled because of that whole Civil War thing.

Today, we've added a sixth name to that list. George Santos.

And don't forget the guy has in front of him a very long list of Federal indictments that include hits like conspiracy against the United States, wire fraud, credit card fraud, and money laundering all of those being really big no-nos. Dude has absolutely not been having the greatest last eleven months of his life and boy oh boy we're JUST getting started on the downhill for him.

Like it's a surprisingly very LONG list of crimes he's facing, like WTF dude did you just spend the last eleven months going, "Okay I've had my morning coffee, time to crime!" And then investigators found more crime after he was indicted and was like "Oh no we've got to put all that other crime on pause because … I mean JUST LOOK AT THIS SHIT!!" and filed a superseding indictment. Like shit was so bad, US Prosecutors were like "all his previous crimes, we've got to put that shit on pause. This new shit, it's GOT to take priority." There's no way you violate that much of the law just by happy chance.

I don't know where we'll all be at in five years from now, but I DO know that each day from now onward, for George Santos it can only get worse for him. Like today, today is the worse day in George Santos' life. And tomorrow, tomorrow will be the worse day in George Santos' life. And that pattern will continue for a good amount of time going forward.

Turns out, the whole "can't arrest me for criming as long I commit new crimes for you to investigate" only works for a certain fat, orange, drowned-muskrat-wearing Floridiot.

Now im imaging Trump wearing the rotting corpse of Musk on his head like Heracles wearing the skin of the Nemian lion. But instead of being noble and a sign of power its just slowly decaying rich fuck wearing a rapidly decomposing rich fuck.

“It almost would have been a dereliction of my duty if I did not support this,” Guest said Friday. “I did what I felt was right from a personal point of view.”

It absolutely would have been yet another dereliction of your duty.

Wow, I didn't know you could be a Congressman without logging in.

311 to 114... And they only needed 290 to bounce him. +21 more than necessary!

Apparently we CAN work together!

Who are the two Democrats who voted present instead of yes? And why did they do that??

Scott (VA) and Williams (GA) voted Nay

Green (TX) and Jackson (IL) voted present. Couldn't give you a reason though

Jackson Lee (TX) and Phillips (MN) were not voting for some reason as well as AOC who I suspect didn't vote since she's also a NY member

It's probably time to check those closets for some skeletons. AOC at least makes a little sense, not wanting to make it seem personal, but I would have rather she ran up the score.

Honestly it's a bit strange, she's never been shy about confrontation.

Edit: lmaaaooooo case in point, what's she's said about Pelosi

She's become a bit of an establishment Republic recently, the thing she'd rally against. The defense is that you need to play their game to get anything done. Ok, but if she's playing their game, she's already lost.

Jackson Lee (TX) and Phillips (MN) were not voting for some reason as well as AOC who I suspect didn’t vote since she’s also a NY member

Out of NY's 26 Representatives in Congress 22 voted to oust Santos and 3 (including Santos himself) voted to keep him in. AOC was the only NY Representative who chose not to vote. I wonder why she abstained.

Source

I'd pay to watch MST3k riff on a documentary about George Santos.

There Joel, I just gave you a fundraising idea.

Too bad Mike Nelson is a conservative from what I know

He is, but he mostly keeps his mouth shut these days. And Bill (who he's still riffing with at Rifftrax) is far enough left to make up for one or two Mikes. If you like snipes at all things R/Elon in your feed, follow Bill on Bluesky

I wasn't going to follow anyone on bluesky regardles, but forcing me to create an account to even view that link is certainly a no go from me

The syntax is ![optional_accessibility_text](image_link)

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HAH made you look!

Unfortunately the accessibility text doesn't appear when you hover over the image, like it does in XKCD.

Thanks. I normally use sync, but it's not working for me right now so I'm using boost and not that familiar with posting from it

This is the best summary I could come up with:


The House on Friday voted to expel Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) from Congress — an action the chamber had taken only five times in U.S. history and not for more than 20 years — in response to an array of alleged crimes and ethical lapses that came to light after the freshman lawmaker was found to have fabricated key parts of his biography.

The vote followed the release two weeks ago of a 56-page Ethics Committee report that accused Santos of an array of misconduct — including stealing money from his campaign, deceiving donors about how contributions would be used, creating fictitious loans and engaging in fraudulent business dealings.

Santos, the report alleges, spent hefty sums on personal enrichment, including visits to spas and casinos, shopping trips to high-end stores and payments to a subscription site that contains adult content.

A defiant Santos has long denied wrongdoing and resisted calls to resign, claiming at a news conference Thursday that fellow House members were “bullying” him and that the Ethics Committee report was incomplete and “littered with hyperbole.”

During House debate Thursday over the resolution, Guest defended the work and report of the panel, saying investigators spent eight months reviewing 172,000 pages of documents and interviewing 40 witnesses.

During long-winded remarks on X Spaces last week, Santos — despite saying he would not step down from office — said he no longer wanted to work with “a bunch of hypocrites” in Congress, whom he accused of committing infractions more severe than his, including being “more worried about getting drunk every night” with lobbyists.


The original article contains 1,411 words, the summary contains 262 words. Saved 81%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

Thank fuck, I won’t have to see that shitpile and his sweaters in the news.

wow that only took half a year. good thing he still got to sit there and vote and get paid in the meantime

Longer than that. His antics were public knowledge about a minute after he took the oath.

His antics were public knowledge weeks before he took office. It was just impossible trying to get someone to actually give a damn at the time.

There was a phrase back in Jim Crow days; a 'yellow dog' Democrat was a Party stalwart who'd vote for a yellow dog if they had a 'D' next to their name. The Party has changed but the dogs haven't

Do you guys think he is going to get a job with a lobbyist group before or after he serves time in federal prison?

Former Congresscritters are only useful to lobbyists because they still have influence in Congress. Who the fuck listens to former Representative George Santos?

I don't think so. I think he's too toxic for even the worst of the GOP, especially since he's admitted to being a serial liar. He has no credibility even within the party for him to be considered valuable to lobbyists.

So you're saying he'll be Trump's VP pick?

Well, this is George Santos we're talking about here. I mean, the man just received the votes of over 300 of his colleagues to leave Congress and become Trump's VP pick. It has already led to Trump skyrocketing in the polls by 1462% among the fictional henchmen of the Marvel, DC, and Looney Tunes universes, and 3789% among incels who live in their mom's basement and can't even dress themselves.

He was cool until he stole from other R's.

Bye bozo

So dumb question, what happens if his district sends him back and he doesn't resign, do they just not get representation?

Expelling is all good for George Santos, but what if they wanted to expel someone for racist or homophobic reasons. This feels like it could be abused.

It takes a super majority (2/3rds) to expel someone. It's hard (though not impossible) to abuse that over personal prejudices. Also, it doesn't stop him from seeking re-election. There will be a special election over his now empty seat in the near future. He can even run in that election. If they re-elect him, he's right back where he was. So even if expelled for spurious or outright bigoted reasons, the voting public can still correct that by electing them again.

This has even arguably happened recently in Tenessee with the expulsion of Representative Justin Jones and Representative Justin Pearson. They were punitively expelled for breaking decorum for protesting on the state house floor, a move widely seen as racially motivated. They were then immediately reappointed and got their seats back.

2/3 of the House has to vote for expelling so it is likely difficult to actually abuse this since 2/3 is not all one party