George Santos expelled

[WLJ]

311 to 114 vote
They did it and I can't say I'm sad to see him go. Now how about certain members of the Squad?

Embattled GOP Rep. George Santos expelled from House
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/embattled-gop-rep-george-santos-expelled-from-house

[Ben]

He's an arrogant jerk who never should have been elected.

My worry is precedent. If what I'm reading is accurate, he was accused of crimes, but has not been convicted of any. Across the political spectrum, we have been playing fast and loose with "innocent until proven guilty".

[French G.]

  Now do Menendez.

[Ben]

  Now do Menendez.

Exactly. If info is accurate, Menendez and his hooker wife did 10X worse than Santos. It does not excuse Santos in my book, but this is just the constant repeat we see with Trump/Biden, 06JAN/antifa, etc. You have to be blind not to see the left-bias thumb on the scale.
 

[dogmush]

I think we should ride with this precident.  Any member of Congress, either House or Senate, indicted of a felony should be expelled.  If they are found not guilty they are free to run for election again.

Presumption of Innocence is in criminal proceedings, it is not a requirement to surround yourself with obvious criminals and miscreants.

[cordex]

I think we should ride with this precident.  Any member of Congress, either House or Senate, indicted of a felony should be expelled.  If they are found not guilty they are free to run for election again.

Presumption of Innocence is in criminal proceedings, it is not a requirement to surround yourself with obvious criminals and miscreants.

If one believes that the accusations will be evenhanded and in good faith then this might make sense.

[Pb]

Any member of Congress, either House or Senate, indicted of a felony should be expelled.

That sounds open to extreme abuse.

[MillCreek]

Wachtler, who became the state’s top judge earlier this month, said district attorneys now have so much influence on grand juries that “by and large” they could get them to “indict a ham sandwich.”

https://slate.com/human-interest/2014/11/sol-wachtler-the-judge-who-coined-indict-a-ham-sandwich-was-himself-indicted.html

Indictment is a pretty low legal bar.

[dogmush]

That sounds open to extreme abuse.

Yeah.. It might result in a whole bunch of congress critters getting kicked out.....maybe so many they couldn't even pass any laws.......darn.....


The ratio of non-criminal moral members of Congress to Amoral criminal asshats is currently such that both sides could abuse that system and start throwing people out and we'd be well into the 500s on expulsions before someone innocent got caught up in the witch hunt.

[WLJ]

Again a satire site is closer to the truth than most of the MSM

Santos Expelled By Congress For Doing Terrible Job Covering Up Ethics Violations
https://babylonbee.com/news/santos-expelled-by-congress-for-doing-terrible-job-covering-up-his-ethics-violations

[dogmush]

Wachtler, who became the state’s top judge earlier this month, said district attorneys now have so much influence on grand juries that “by and large” they could get them to “indict a ham sandwich.”

https://slate.com/human-interest/2014/11/sol-wachtler-the-judge-who-coined-indict-a-ham-sandwich-was-himself-indicted.html

Indictment is a pretty low legal bar.

Counterpoint:  We should hold elected leaders to high standards, and if they fail to achieve those standards, replace them till we find people that do or run out of Americans.

[cordex]

The ratio of non-criminal moral members of Congress to Amoral criminal asshats is currently such that both sides could abuse that system and start throwing people out and we'd be well into the 500s on expulsions before someone innocent got caught up in the witch hunt.

What makes you think the criminals would be the first ones indicted?

For that matter, what makes you think the worst criminals would ever be indicted?

You have an amazing amount of faith in the US justice system.

[dogmush]

You have an amazing amount of faith in the US justice system.

I really don't.

I just have less faith in the Legislature.  You guys are saying it would be abused.  How?  By removing someone who should stay in?  I'm not convinced they can find someone like that to abuse.

I would hope that it get's abused in that there's a flurry of partisan indictments, and congress is emptied so fast that there's like 3 people sitting there unable to produce a quarum.  Gods know that partisan abuse is the only way most of those jack wagons will ever see the inside of a courtroom, so I'll take it.

[Ben]

I really don't.

I just have less faith in the Legislature.  You guys are saying it would be abused.  How?  By removing someone who should stay in?  I'm not convinced they can find someone like that to abuse.

I would hope that it get's abused in that there's a flurry of partisan indictments, and congress is emptied so fast that there's like 3 people sitting there unable to produce a quarum.  Gods know that partisan abuse is the only way most of those jack wagons will ever see the inside of a courtroom, so I'll take it.

The problem is that the partisan indictments go predominately in one direction. There are establishment Rs that happily step up to create a voting majority to censure Lauren Boebert or Marjorie Taylor Green (or Santos), but then will side with Dems to keep Menendez, or recently, refuse to vote to get rid of Mayorkas. I guarantee that if Biden is ever impeached, Rs will kibosh the vote.

And certainly that's not a problem with "the other side". That's Rs who decide that they must punish Rs to show that they are unbiased, while voting not to punish Ds because they want to show how "fair" they are, and, "We wouldn't want them to do that to us". Suckers.

Or I guess in some cases, cutting off their noses to spite their face, as we saw with the "Republicans" on the 06JAN committee.

[cordex]

I just have less faith in the Legislature.  You guys are saying it would be abused.  How?  By removing someone who should stay in?  I'm not convinced they can find someone like that to abuse.

I'm saying the people most likely to abuse lawfare are likely to pick the least desirable people to stay in.  I'm saying that as bad as things seem now, it could shockingly be made even worse by firing certain politicians.

I would hope that it get's abused in that there's a flurry of partisan indictments, and congress is emptied so fast that there's like 3 people sitting there unable to produce a quarum.  Gods know that partisan abuse is the only way most of those jack wagons will ever see the inside of a courtroom, so I'll take it.

... and then maybe your favorite supermodel will pay you a million dollars to blow you!

[Ben]

... and then maybe your favorite supermodel will pay you a million dollars to blow you!

Your ideas are intriguing, and I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

[Perd Hapley]

It's possible I'm reading too much into this, but we can ask the British Parliament how it worked out for them to have MPs arrested and/or removed from office, rather than letting voters decide who belongs in the legislature. #FiveMembers #JohnWilkes

The knuckleheads in Tennessee might be a parallel example, but George Santos isn't bringing in rioters to disrupt proceedings, so maybe they ain't.

[WLJ]

  Now do Menendez.

Fetterman agrees

    Fetterman: "We have a colleague in the Senate that's actually done much more sinister kinds of things. He needs to go. If you are going to expel Santos, how can you allow Menendez to remain in the Senate? Menendez is really a Senator for Egypt, not New Jersey." pic.twitter.com/OdWTznfnmL
    — TheBlaze (@theblaze) December 1, 2023

https://twitchy.com/grateful-calvin/2023/12/01/regarding-john-senator-fetterman-calls-for-bob-menendez-to-be-expelled-from-senate-n2390396

[HankB]

If a congresscritter can be expelled for ethics violations prior to any criminal conviction, how about a congresscritter who slept with a Chinese spy when he had access to highly-classified material? That seems to be FAR more serious . . . at least, it certainly would be if the congresscritter had an "R" rather than a "D" after his name.

[WLJ]

If a congresscritter can be expelled for ethics violations prior to any criminal conviction, how about a congresscritter who slept with a Chinese spy when he had access to highly-classified material? That seems to be FAR more serious . . . at least, it certainly would be if the congresscritter had an "R" rather than a "D" after his name.

And then he has the arrogance to lecture people over ethics

[MechAg94]

Using indictments to kick out elected officials is not a good way to go.  Essentially someone like George Soros would now control Congress.  He would have every one of his bought-and-paid-for DA's indict every Republican or Democrat that doens't tow the line.  Quorum rules would be removed and a handful of remaining legislators would pass any law they wanted.  I really don't think you would have any or enough DA's to go the other way.

If I can think of that scenario in about 10 seconds, I am sure other scenarios would be less obvious.

[Pb]

I agree with cordex and MechAg94.

[Ben]

Using indictments to kick out elected officials is not a good way to go.  Essentially someone like George Soros would now control Congress.  He would have every one of his bought-and-paid-for DA's indict every Republican or Democrat that doens't tow the line.  Quorum rules would be removed and a handful of remaining legislators would pass any law they wanted.  I really don't think you would have any or enough DA's to go the other way.

If I can think of that scenario in about 10 seconds, I am sure other scenarios would be less obvious.

Yup. To again bring Trump into it, he has two simultaneous trials going on right now based on shady DAs. That's two teams of lawyers in two different parts of the country.  He can afford it, but even insider trading congressmen would have some difficulty coming up with that kind of dough to defend themselves.

It's really not much different than what we complain about here all the time - the corrupt govt with unlimited resources can just wipe you out defending yourself, including when you are 100% innocent. I guess we laugh when it happens to politicritters, but *expletive deleted*it rolls downhill, and as gunowners, we should be especially sensitive to this kind of crap.

[230RN]

Wachtler, who became the state’s top judge earlier this month, said district attorneys now have so much influence on grand juries that “by and large” they could get them to “indict a ham sandwich.”

https://slate.com/human-interest/2014/11/sol-wachtler-the-judge-who-coined-indict-a-ham-sandwich-was-himself-indicted.html

Indictment is a pretty low legal bar.

And it's my reollection that defense attorneys are not permitted in grand jury proceedings.  It's all on the Prosecutor.

True?  And if so, how universal is that among the States?

To recap some of the above remarks, "Accusations are cheap.  Defense is expensive."

[WLJ]

If a congresscritter can be expelled for ethics violations prior to any criminal conviction, how about a congresscritter who slept with a Chinese spy when he had access to highly-classified material? That seems to be FAR more serious . . . at least, it certainly would be if the congresscritter had an "R" rather than a "D" after his name.

And then he has the arrogance to lecture people over ethics

Guess who

'長大!' Eric Swalwell Insists He Knows Who the House will Expel Next and the Replies are Comedy GOLD
https://twitchy.com/samj/2023/12/03/swalwell-next-rep-to-be-expelled-n2390428