I suppose they can censure George Santos now

High on the list of names that Congressional Republicans are probably getting tired of hearing about these days you would no doubt find indicted New York Congressman George Santos. He’s already pleaded not guilty to a litany of campaign finance violations and other infractions and is currently awaiting trial. A previous effort by his fellow Republicans to oust him was referred to the House Ethics Committee earlier this year. But now some of his Democratic colleagues have apparently grown impatient and are preparing a motion to censure Santos this week. And some of them are being quite vocal about it. (Just the News)

A group of House Democrats plan to introduce legislation on Monday to censure New York Republican Rep. George Santos, who has struggled to fend off criminal charges and a slew of scandals related to his sordid past and false campaign statements.

Lawmakers have previously introduced legislation to oust him from Congress, while in May the lower chamber voted to refer that resolution to the House Ethics Committee.

Monday’s effort comes from Democratic Reps. Ritchie Torres, N.Y.; Robert Garcia, Calif.; and Dan Goldman, N.Y…

For his part, Santos continues to insist that his office “is hard at work, serving constituents and crafting keen legislation.” He also referred to the efforts to censure him as “political ping pong.”

At this link, you can watch a video of Jamaal Bowman screaming at Santos to resign as he answers questions from reporters.

It’s not clear what a censure would accomplish, even if it goes through. That wouldn’t remove him from office and he’s already been left out in the cold in terms of committee seats. An official declaration saying, ‘You’re a bad person‘ is unlikely to drive him from the chamber voluntarily because the man is obviously utterly shameless.

Unless and until a court convicts him, we’re not likely to see any additional action of a formal nature. If he’s convicted, his expulsion should be essentially automatic and the Ethics Committee will no doubt move swiftly to take care of it. If there’s anything more embarrassing for the party than having a member awaiting trial, it would be having one sitting in jail.

In other Santos news, it turns out that he suddenly attracted some high-dollar donors in the second quarter of the year. So does that mean that his support back home is rebounding? Probably not. It appears that nearly all of the maximum donors are directly tied to an indicted Chinese financier with a history of right-wing activism named Guo Wengui.

After The Daily Beast reported that a bumper crop of new maximum donors to Rep. George Santos (R-NY) appeared to have links to indicted Chinese right-wing financier Guo Wengui, new evidence suggests those ties are even stronger than anyone could have guessed.

On Monday, the Hark Herald Press, an independent investigative outlet that scrutinizes Chinese political operations, reported that, according to its research, almost all of these new donors are connected to a group that Guo created with right-wing agitator and ally Steve Bannon, called the New Federal State of China (NFSC).

All of these Chinese donors accounted for $130,000 of the $162,000 he took in last quarter. The donations all showed up within a matter of days and they were all linked to the same China-affiliated organization. And in case you couldn’t have predicted it, $85,000 of that money (more than half) went directly back into Santos’ personal bank account in a transaction described as a “loan repayment.” So I suppose nothing much has really changed inside of Club Santos.