Republican Lawmaker Wants To Bankrupt George Santos With New Legislation

One of George Santos' Republican colleagues in the House is circulating a draft bill among the GOP that appears to directly target Santos to prevent him from profiting off his newfound fame. The bill would prohibit any member of Congress from making money via books, speeches, or other methods if they are convicted of campaign finance violations or other financial crimes - all the things that Santos is currently under investigation for. Farron Cousins explains what's happening.

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*This transcript was auto-generated. Please excuse any typos.

Republicans in Congress are finally starting to get tough and demand something happened to George Santos to get him outta Congress. That's actually not a true statement because I said Republicans, when really what I meant was a single one Republican lawmaker, wants to expel George Santos from Congress. That Republican lawmaker is, uh, another Republican freshman from New York. Anthony Despacito and Congressman Despacito has not only put forth a resolution to expel George Santos from Congress, the first Republican to do so. Uh, Democrats had already done that, by the way. But he's also put forth what I think might be the best piece of legislation I have seen in a very long time because this legislation would specifically make it illegal for George Santos to profit off of his story should he end up convicted in one of the many investigations that are going on into his backstory. The legislation. Here it is, lemme read it.

The bill would prohibit members of the House of Representatives who are convicted of offenses involving financial or campaign finance fraud from receiving compensation for biographies, media appearances or expressive or creative works. And for other purposes. The concern of course, is that George Santos, when he leaves office, which will at the latest be at the end of 2024, cuz he is definitely not gonna win another term, um, he could go on the speaking circuit, believe it or not, as horrible as this dude is, people want to see the train wreck, they want to hear the story. He could sell his life story. I mean, hell it make a heck of a movie. Let's be real about that. We'd all wanna watch it and he could make a ton of money off it, and that's not fair. So would Congressman Despacito has done here, has said, wait a minute, I'm gonna, I'm looking at all these investigations, you guys, he's got possible financial crimes, possible campaign finance, uh, crimes.

So I'm just gonna make it to where if anybody in the house, you know, not pointing any fingers, Santos, um, if you get convicted of these, you're no longer allowed to legally make money off speeches or your life story. Even if you made a painting depicting yourself lying, you, you can't profit off that because it does say creative works, um, very thorough. Gotta give him credit because that is very thorough. Even if he made up a little interpretive dance, you can't profit off of it. I promised you I will never dance on video again. The, I don't even know if you can consider that dancing. Um, here's the pro, here's the problem. Uh, one, this law is not gonna pass. Uh, I do not think you're gonna get enough Republicans to vote in favor of this.

I would love to see it pass because, not just because of George Santos, but because if you lie your way, you know, basically crime your way through Congress, you shouldn't be allowed to profit off of that. We have seen members of Congress arrested for campaign finance violations for other financial crimes, you know, insider trading, things like that. You shouldn't be allowed to profit off that crap. So I, I do support the legislation. I think it's actually really good. I also know that Congress rarely ever passes any kind of law that's going to punish themselves. So I think that's pie in the sky. And even if they did, I mean, you can't necessarily bar someone from making money. I mean, there's no way in hell the Supreme Court is gonna, you know, get that case, which they eventually would cuz it would be appealed, um, or challenged in court. And the Supreme Court's not gonna look at it and say, yes, you can actually bar a, a person from making money. Like, you just can't do that. I'd love it if you could. I still support the legislation. I, I support the motive behind it too, which is to specifically punish George Santos. But it's not gonna last. It's not gonna survive. Much like George Santo's career. It's gonna be over and hopefully we can all move on.