(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Kevin McCarthy still stands by George Santos [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2023-01-13 At his first press conference as Speaker, McCarthy declared that as far as he is concerned, there is no reason to push Santos out—yet. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said Thursday that Rep. George Santos is a member in good standing of the Republican conference, despite a growing scandal linked to widespread deceptions. "The voters have elected George Santos," McCarthy said in a news conference. "He is seated." After calls from GOP leaders in New York that Santos step down, McCarthy acknowledged Santos "has a long way to go to build trust." McCarthy did concede a day earlier that Santos will not be allowed to serve on any committees that would give him access to classified material. Never mind that Democrats, and a number of Republicans, think he shouldn’t be on any committees at all—at least until the Ethics Committee can look into the matter. That doesn’t go nearly far enough for a number of Republican officials from New York. In case you missed it, on Wednesday, a number of Republican leaders from Nassau County, which makes up the bulk of Santos’ district, held a press conference in which they demanded that Santos go and go now. Nassau County GOP chairman Joseph Cairo went as far to declare Santos persona non grata on Long Island, saying that “we do not consider him be one of our congresspeople.” Nassau County Executive Bruce Blaikman said that Santos “needs help” and is “not a normal person”—especially if he is “deluding himself” by thinking he has any business in Congress. By Thursday, according to NPR’s Brian Mann, six of New York’s 11 Republican congressmen had called for Santos’ resignation. This stance proves that there are some Republicans who still believe in honor and integrity in the age of Trump. It has been amply established that Santos has neither. This is a man who has been proven to have lied about his education, lied about his business background, and lied about being the descendant of Holocaust survivors. Simply put, we don’t know who this guy is. But apparently McCarthy doesn’t mind. He claims that this is a matter for the voters in Santos’ district. No, Mr. Speaker. We are asking questions about Santos that we should never, ever have to ask about our leaders. If we don’t know who he is, how can we trust him? For all of the many faults of the last two Republicans to hold the speakership, John Boehner and Paul Ryan, they had less-than-zero tolerance for this sort of behavior. And the rank-and-file knew it. My research reveals that at least three Republicans resigned when questions about their integrity were raised that are minor league compared to the ones swirling around Santos. In 2011, Chris Lee of New York resigned from his seat in the Buffalo and Rochester suburbs after being caught trolling for affairs on Craigslist. In 2015, Aaron Schock of Illinois resigned from a Peoria-area seat after he billed taxpayers for double the miles on his car’s odometer. Both resigned rather than face being told to do so by Boehner. In 2017, Ryan forced Trent Franks of Arizona to resign from his West Valley seat after Franks harassed two of his staffers about being surrogate mothers for his wife. I’m also reminded that the GOP pitched a fit over Nancy Pelosi tearing a copy of Trump’s State of the Union speech. Law professor Jonathan Turley even called for Pelosi to step down, claiming that she’d forgotten that she represented the whole House. There is something very wrong if standing by a man who almost certainly stole his seat by lying about his background draws fewer hackles than ripping a piece of paper. Every day that Santos remains in office is yet more proof that McCarthy does not respect the dignity of his office and the House as an institution. And it is also hard proof that the GOP is not fit to govern. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/1/13/2146965/-Kevin-McCarthy-still-stands-by-George-Santos Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/