House Votes To Expel Last Living Civil War Vet George Santos
'You won't have Santos to kick around anymore. I wrote that myself.'
As the gif file says, “Well … bye.” The House of Representatives decided that the “third time is a charm,” and voted today to expel Rep. George Santos (R-“New York,” if such a place exists). The 311 to 114 vote made Santos only the third member of the House to be expelled since the Civil War, when three Southern-state congressmen were expelled for disloyalty to the Union.
By coincidence, one of them was actually George Santo’s great-great-great grandfather, who later survived the sinking of the Titanic. Most people don’t know that.
Santos became the butt of jokes even before he took office when intrepid reporters asked questions that should have been asked during the campaign, revealing he had lied about damn near every part of his résumé, like his claims to have worked for Goldman Sachs and Citigroup, or to have attended Baruch College (where he was a “volleyball star”), or his claim that his grandparents were Jews who survived the Holocaust. And jebus crine, that was only the first set of lies to come to light.
What did Santos in, though, wasn’t his completely made-up life, his federal indictments on multiple fraud charges, or even his foiled plot to carve his name on the moon with a giant laser, but instead the recent bipartisan House Ethics Committee report that detailed how much of a scummy (accused) crimer and misuser of campaign funds Santos is. This includes using donations to pay for Botox and freaking OnlyFans subscriptions. (The furor around that revelation has yet to abate.)
And let’s not forget that the report what finished him off was itself a byproduct of the first attempt to expel Santos, when then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy punted the matter to the Ethics Committee. Republicans voted down a second expulsion resolution in October, because he’d only been indicted on fraud charges, not convicted, and they decided they didn’t want to lose his vote and have an even narrower majority.
But now he’s out, haha, and a special election will fill his seat, probably not with another Republican, unless voters fall in love with the just-declared candidate Shmorge Shmantos, who says he’s a direct descendant of both Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan and a graduate of Shmaruch College, where he was a championship kickball star.
All four leaders in the House Republican conference — Speaker Mike Johnson, Majority Leader Steve Scalise, Conference Chair Elise Stefanik, and Whip Tom Emmer (a title, not an imperative statement) — were among the 112 Republicans who voted to keep Santos in the House, possibly because he promised them rides on his rocket ship. Two Democrats I’ve never heard of, Bobby Scott of Virginia and Nikema Williams of Georgia, voted against expulsion, and two others, Jonathan Jackson of Illinois and Al Green of Texas, voted “present.” That should make for a few interesting press conferences.
Also too, literally after we started typing this story — slowly and full of typos, yes — we learned that Rep. Max Miller, a first-term Republican from Ohio, accused Santos of personally ripping off his family. Miller claimed Santos had used credit card information to steal $5,000 from Miller and another $5,000 from Miller’s mother.
“I think leadership — this is just another example of Republicans who can't lead. And that's a really shameful. You know, the speaker and everyone in leadership knows that this man is a crook,” Miller said. […]
“In January, I got an FEC Complaint because of an over donation to George Santos, and I'll explain why. I’m Jewish, my family's Jewish and they were donors and they like to give money to people who are Jewish, who are Republicans, because that's who we are,” he said.
“And Mr. Santos took, not only my credit card personally, he took my mother's credit card personally and he swiped them both for an additional $5,000, marking it as an over donation. And I have it by the FEC, and I have the document in my office. And what I can tell you is within that document — I won't disclose any other names — but he defrauded over 350 people for hundreds of thousands of dollars under undisclosed amounts, and I had to hire an attorney to fight it by the FEC that I think cost me 15 or $20,000. Altogether, this man has cost my family $30,000.”
Miller made the accusation in a letter to congressional colleagues shortly before the expulsion vote. By the end of work today, we fully expect to learn that Santos also played a role in the Lindbergh baby kidnapping, both Kennedy assassinations, the Challenger disaster, and the greenlighting of the NBC TV series “Manimal.”
Santos reacted to his expulsion with the grace and dignity you’d expect, telling CNN,
“It’s over. The House spoke, that’s their vote. They just set new dangerous precedent for themselves.”
When asked if he would still stay and use nonmember privileges because he is not convicted, Santos said, "Why would I want to stay here? To hell with this place.” […]
And then he said, “You know what? As unofficially no longer a member of Congress, I no longer have to answer your questions.”
After today, surely we will never hear from him again. He couldn’t possibly have the chootspah to ever show his face in public, right? Yep, that’s it for this footnote to history, at least until he becomes Emperor of Mars.
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I’m torn. Clearly the guy is a lying grifter, but he also saved my great-grandparents from the Hindenburg disaster and therefore I would not be here if it weren’t for his bravery and skill piloting an early flying fire suppression machine.
And speaking of people who are over sleazeballs:
Walmart is the latest advertiser to pull ads from Elon Musk’s X
“We aren’t advertising on X as we’ve found other platforms to better reach our customers,” a Walmart spokesperson said.
HA!
https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/01/business/walmart-advertiser-ads-x-elon-musk/index.html