CENTRAL ISLIP, NY – A 23-count superseding indictment was filed today in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York, charging George Anthony Devolder Santos, better known as “George Santos,” the United States Representative for the Third District of New York, with one count of conspiracy to commit offenses against the United States, two counts of wire fraud, two counts of making materially false statements to the Federal Election Commission (FEC), two counts of falsifying records submitted to obstruct the FEC, two counts of aggravated identity theft, and one count of access device fraud.
We’re starting to normalize charging sitting politicians for their crimes again and I’m here for it
I wish Abscam had ushered in a whole new wave of the executive branch actively testing the corruption level of the legislative branch as part of its normal operating procedures
Yep. Democrat or Republican, doesn’t matter. Get the crooks out.
(We all know it’s mostly Republicans, of course.)
My favorite moment was when Robert Menendez was charged with fraud. First, the Republicans tried to make it into a gotcha moment. “See? The Democrats will try to protect this criminal!” Except the Democrats either called for him to resign or refused to comment. Very few stood by him against the charges.
And then the Republicans realized that “Menendez should resign due to fraud charges” would apply to Santos as well. Suddenly, the Republicans were all for Menendez staying in Congress until he had his day in court.
So you had Republicans saying “this Democrat should remain in office” and (many) Democrats saying “he should resign ASAP.”
I feel like there’s an important precedent with Hunter Biden, too. Yes you can get charged even if you’re in the royal family. It’ll make absolutely no difference to what the Republicans say, since they make no pretense of consistency, but it’ll make a difference to actual law enforcement and judicial decisions to some degree, which are a lot more impactful.
The difference of course is that Hunter Biden is being prosecuted for something that is normally not prosecuted solely because of his families political ties. The Trump family were not investigated/prosecuted for things that are normally prosecuted because of political ties.
Roe v wade was overturned. Not really
Yeah… it’s concerning. There are small signs of hope in that all the current Supreme Court has been telling Trump to go to hell any time he wants them to keep him in power regardless of the votes.
(So far)
(Also I was talking not really about the courts but a more about the prosecutors and Justice Department getting in the habit of pursuing even “important people” when they’re being clearly criminal. It’s not much but I’ll take it.)
Unfortunately, it is far too late to abort most Republican Congressmen.
I was totally not surprised Menendez committed more crimes.
I was surprised he was still a senator though. I was hoping he had already been removed.
Yeah absolutely. And if there are crooked Democrats get rid of them too.
Getting rid of the crooks, and keeping the honest people, should be something bipartisan as far as the citizenry is concerned, but people are tribal and so here we are.
Republicans are blatant with it, on a whole different level… But let’s keep it going. Let’s not stop at the obviously illegal - let’s keep pushing until all of them who are profiting from a clear conflict of interest start to sweat
Imagine the things we could accomplish if we eliminated the ability to sell out for our lawmakers
Normalize convicting them. Normalize sentences that match the crime.
Charges don’t mean shit if the rest of the legal process doesn’t do its job, and lately it hasn’t had the greatest track record.
As long as the penance is appropriate and not a slap in the wrist it all might actually mean something.
On this day in history, Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned in shame having been accused of “political corruption” and tax evasion!