As part of an apparent effort to commit as many crimes as possible in something of a speed-run, Con(gress)man George Santos is now additionally charged with federal offenses including wire fraud and identity theft, part of an accusation that he used donors’ financial information to effectively scam them during his campaign.
In allegedly stealing from his own prior donors, Santos showed he had no compunction about biting the hand that fed, and certainly no loyalty to anyone, even those people who supported him enough to make a contribution. If he didn’t even care about literally defrauding his donors, how could he possibly care about representing his broader swath of constituents? The picture that gets sharper every week is of a fraud who would sell his own grandmother for a nickel, lying the whole time he did it.
The big liar maintains, as he always has, that he’s innocent (of these charges, anyway, as he’s already admitted to lying about his whole biography), and that he’s being targeted for politics. He’s right that this law enforcement attention is downstream from his position, just as the scrutiny on Donald Trump’s many failed and fraudulent businesses is inarguably coming as a result of his prominence as a former president.
Both men are, however, getting the chain of causality backwards: prosecutors aren’t making up charges to punish them for their political positions, but rather their offices have drawn attention to the crimes they seem to have been openly doing already.
There are thousands of two-bit con men just like them, all around the country, skimming credit cards and getting loans on inflated properties, and the truth is most go relatively unnoticed because the authorities can’t nail them all. What sets these men apart is that they are or were in positions to make weighty decisions on behalf of a voting public, and their alleged criminal and unethical behavior is of greater public note.
Nonetheless, Santos is right that, no matter how much he made up and obfuscated during his run, he is the duly elected member of Congress, and it’s a deadly serious thing to remove a sitting federal legislator. As the House GOP drifts towards seeing nakedly ideological investigations as a valid political tool — see the fatuous Biden impeachment inquiry, a trial in search of an offense — we should keep the bar for removal appropriately high.
That means no expulsion of Santos based on an unresolved proceeding; he might be an established liar and a cheat, but he has due process rights just like anyone else, and tossing Congress members out for lying is a rather slippery slope.
Instead, federal prosecutors should offer him a sweetheart deal if he agrees to resign. While rules of federal criminal procedure appropriately bar prosecutors from attempting to impose a resignation in a way that could violate separation of powers, they encourage seeking one as part of a negotiated plea deal, with the defendant’s agreement.
Does Santos deserve more than a suspended sentence or some probation? Perhaps, but what’s most important is getting him out of the House at a moment where his vote is significant, and a plea would have him admitting guilt in a way that neutralizes claims that he was politically targeted.
New York Daily News Editorial Board
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