Speaker McCarthy’s refusal to punish George Santos is itself a scandal
Quin Hillyer
With every hour that goes by, it becomes more baffling that House Speaker Kevin McCarthy refuses to preemptively discipline scandal-plagued Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.).
Despite massive evidence that the newly elected Santos is an astonishingly flagrant serial fabulist, McCarthy has ratified the appointment of Santos to two House committees. McCarthy also has refused to join calls for Santos to resign voluntarily from Congress, which would save Congress the time and effort of a formal Ethics Committee inquiry that is all but certain to result in Santos’ eventual expulsion anyway.
EMBATTLED REP. GEORGE SANTOS TAPPED FOR TWO HOUSE COMMITTEES
Granted, Santos need not comply with a request for his resignation, and he has the right to demand a formal inquiry process. Yet when the evidence of his material dishonesty (and perhaps worse) is so overwhelming, neither formal nor informal precedent argues that McCarthy can’t or shouldn’t publicly pressure Santos or refuse to reward him with committee spots. Just four years and four days ago, McCarthy wisely, removed Iowa’s Rep. Steve King from all his committee spots because of repeated racist remarks. If he could do it to King without a formal Ethics review, he ought to do the same to Santos.
Santos’ case isn’t one of run-of-the-mill politicians’ fibs. Instead, the level of his dishonesty is so stupendous as to shock any conscience worthy of the name. Without the lies, there can be no doubt that Santos would not have been elected in his highly competitive Empire State district.
To review: Santos has admitted he lied about graduating from two colleges that he never even attended in the first place, and that he played football at one of them. He lied about attending an exclusive prep school. He lied that he worked for Citigroup and Goldman Sachs. He lied about founding a charity group called Friends of Pets United. He lied that he was Jewish and that his grandparents barely escaped the Holocaust. He lied that four of his employees died in a nightclub tragedy, that he owns more than a dozen properties (he owns none), and that his mother died in the Twin Towers on 9/11, and other claims as well.
Santos’ campaign finances also raise numerous red flags. And now he stands accused essentially of stealing $3,000 from a GoFundMe account set up to provide veterinary services for a tumor-plagued dog of a homeless, disabled military veteran.
And the hits just keep on comin’.
Already, Santos’ own local district Republican organization has demanded his resignation. And for McCarthy, this last news, about the dog and the veteran, should be the boulder that breaks the chihuahua’s back. It involved not just lying to gullible voters, but thievery (alleged, but with strong evidence) and immense cruelty to both animal and man.
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It should not matter that McCarthy’s Republican majority is small and that a vacancy in Santos’ seat would make the majority even smaller. What matters is what is right and decent. Moreover, the longer McCarthy lets the Santos situation fester, the less likely it is that a Republican will be able to win a special election to replace the House’s resident con artist. The longer Congress’ top Republican seems to excuse such mendacity, the more certain it is that voters will associate the party with crookedness and punish it accordingly.
For reasons both ethical and calculatingly cynical, then, McCarthy should lance the Santos tumor. Evict him from committees, now, while expediting the formal ethics process and, simultaneously, publicly urging him to vamoose. Santos’ dog’s breakfast of chicanery ought to be rapidly purged.