Protecting Santos’ Presumed Innocence

The House showed the better part of wisdom by refraining from expelling Representative George Santos for corruption and misstatements of the sort that Mark Twain had in mind when he wrote that “there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress.” Unsavory as the charges may be, Mr. Santos has pleaded not guilty and is entitled to the presumption of innocence, especially since no evidence has yet been produced in court.It’s not as if the Congress has been unwilling to countenance a man under indictment from serving as a legislator and voting on matters of state and the national fisc. No less a panjandrum than the Honorable Robert Menendez of New Jersey carried on at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee when he was under indictment and on trial for corruption. Yet it turned out the federal government didn’t have the goods to convict him.We carry no brief for Mr. Santos. Yet the charges against him are arguably less severe than those handed up against, say, Mr. Menendez. The Garden State Senator was accused long into his service of selling his office. Mr. Santos wasn’t even in Congress when most of his alleged crimes were committed, and no lie he is accused of telling was as fraudulent as naming President Biden’s spending bill an Inflation Reduction Act.Mr. Santos stands accused in federal court of wire fraud, theft of public funds, money laundering, and even making what prosecutors call “materially false statements to the House of Representatives.” These are serious matters, to be sure, though it does seem that if that last charge sticks in a court of law, it could well put an end to the tradition of the President coming down to the Capitol to deliver the State of the Union address.Accusations of criminality are far from rare among the solons on Capitol Hill. Most recently, a Nebraska Republican, Congressman Jeff Fortenberry, was in October 2021 indicted for lying to the authorities and concealing information. A federal jury found him guilty in March 2022, at which point he agreed to Speaker McCarthy’s request that he resign. Fortenberry was sentenced to two years’ probation, Roll Call reports.A New York Republican, Congressman Chris Collins, resigned his seat in 2019 when he pleaded guilty on charges of securities fraud and making false statements to law enforcement, Roll Call reports. He was sentenced to more than two years in prison, yet was pardoned by President Trump. A California Republican, Representative Duncan Hunter, resigned after pleading guilty to stealing campaign funds. Mr. Trump pardoned him, too.The list goes on, with Representatives Corrine Brown of Florida, Chakah Fattah of Pennsylvania, and Michael Grimm of New York all running afoul of the law to varying degrees. Brown received a five-year prison sentence for fraud. Fattah was found guilty in a “racketeering conspiracy,” the Justice Department says. Grimm resigned his seat upon pleading guilty to tax fraud charges. It’s all enough to make you lose faith in the honesty of politicians.The outstanding fact of the Santos case is that the people of New York’s 3rd Congressional district have long tired of the kind of dishonesty of policy that the Democratic party has been brazenly committing. Mr. Santos was hoisted by the voters into office in the midterms that turned the House for the GOP and rebuked Mr. Biden’s agenda. Those voters are the proper arbiters of his political fate — at least until a jury brings in a verdict of guilty.

Protecting Santos’ Presumed Innocence

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