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“I just want to get to the work of the people and all these distractions like Santos and messaging bills about nothing, have been really discouraging,” Democratic Rep. Jamaal Bowman says
Seeking to take the attention off of his scandalous career in his final hours in office, Republican George Santos sought to have fellow New York Congressman Jamaal Bowman, a Black Democrat, removed from office.
At a press conference on Thursday, Santos told theGrio that Bowman would get “his fair day at an expulsion vote” for pulling a fire alarm in a Capitol Building during a contentious funding vote in September.
Then on Friday, 105 Republicans joined most Democrats in voting to expel Santos, who represented New York’s 3rd Congressional District, from the House after a damning ethics report detailed his sordid conduct.
The move ended Santos’ congressional career, but his desire to see Bowman ousted could materialize, should a Republican take up the mantle and push to expel Bowman over the fire alarm incident.
In one of his final congressional acts, Santos on Thursday introduced a privileged measure on the House floor to expel Bowman for falsely pulling a fire alarm on September 30, moments before House members were scheduled to vote on a funding bill to stave off a government shutdown.
Bowman later pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor for the offense. He agreed to pay a $1,000 fine, draft an apology letter to the U.S. Capitol Police and serve three months of probation.
“Had that been any other person, had it been one of the members of the media, had it been a Republican member of Congress, we all know that person would have been charged with obstructing a Congressional hearing,” Santos claimed at the press conference.
“But, Jamaal Bowman gets a pass,” he continued.
“After all [Bowman] pleaded to pulling a fire alarm, obstructing an official proceeding, lied about his timeline,” he told theGrio.
“There was a rush to stall the vote so that they can go into conference so that they can read the bill and figure out if they were going to read yay or nay on that,” he added.
Bowman brushed Santos comments to the side.
“No one in Congress or anywhere in America, takes soon-to-be former congressman George Santos seriously,” Bowman said in a statement, according to The Hill.
“This is just another meaningless stunt in his long history of cons, antics, and outright fraud,” he added.
U.S. Rep. Troy Carter, D-La., told theGrio that Santos’ expulsion resolution was an “act of desperation.”
“It’s amazing how Mr. Santos is trying to deflect from his own shortcomings and somehow trying to minimize his own efforts and issues by bringing someone else in for what was obviously a mistake,” he said.
“Mr. Bowman was very clear that his pulling of the fire alarm was not intentional. It was him rushing to get to the House floor and he made a mistake,” he added. “The issues with Santos are clearly not a mistake. There is a very long and deep pattern of misdeeds and illegal acts by Santos.”
On Thursday, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., held a weekly press conference and he told theGrio that Santos lacked any justification to introduce the privileged motion.
“Well, the Ethics Committee acted with respect to the situation with Jamaal Bowman and indicated that no further ethics committee action was necessary,” he said.
“So, there’s no basis for George Santos who is a joke and an embarrassment and a serial fraudster to move forward with any resolution or to take him seriously at all,” he added. “The question that we should all be asking is why is George Santos still around?”
Santos’ expulsion comes just weeks after the House Committee on Ethics released a scathing report that unveiled the embattled congressman misused campaign funds during his run for Congress in 2020 and 2022 and he knowingly violated federal ethics law by failing to file financial disclosure statements with the U.S. House of Representatives.
Ahead of Friday’s vote, Bowman told theGrio that removing the embattled congressman from office was “long overdue.”
“Good riddance,” he said.
“This place is an extreme circus under Republican leadership anyway and to get one of the clowns out is a beautiful thing,” he added. “I just want to get to the work of the people and all these distractions like Santos and messaging bills about nothing, have been really discouraging,” he said.
“Hopefully getting him out is one step closer to getting the majority and then governing for the people.”
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