>

No it doesn't because they flat out don't care and why should they?
Why should they fear the law when the law has demonstrated a complete unwillingness to hold them accountable for their actions?
Why should they fear their voters when their voters have demonstrated that they will blindly support them no matter what?
Why should they fear the Democrats when the Democrats of constantly shown that they're obsessed with civility politics to the point of self-destruction?
Oh, it's not an "impossible position."
The position is - Santos broke campaign finance law, and should be removed from Congress and prosecuted.
That is - if the Republican Party had any principles other than power. >

While everything leads to Santos breaking campaign finance laws, the facts need to prove it and show that he knew he was breaking the law.  McCarthy and the GOP will look for a every possible explanation no matter how farcical to explain this away.  I honestly don’t have much faith that the GOP will remove him even if it’s proven he’s broken the law.  They’ll deflect and distract hoping that people just lose interest.  While Michael Cohen went to prison for violating campaign finance laws over the Stormy Daniels affair, he did so only after admitting that he knew it was a crime and did it anyway.  Even then, Trump skated on the issue because he had Cohen as a fall-guy.  Prior to that, Obama’s campaign admitted to campaign finance violations and paid a fine but nothing else happened.
In short, don’t expect the GOP to remove Santos even if he’s found to have broken campaign finance laws.  McCarthy needs all the votes he can get. >

Serious question: Is ignorance of the law a defense in campaign finance cases? Also, money laundering is surely part of this (purposely obscuring the source of the money). I have a feeling he will be indicted before his term expires, it's just too high profile to let slide. >


Is ignorance of the law a defense in campaign finance cases?

Not under any circumstances is it a legal defense. >

Key statement (emphasis mine):

Ignorance of the law is ordinarily not an excuse for criminal law violations, except when a person makes a mistake of law because of a reasonable reliance upon an official interpretation of the law. 

Unless he was relying on the advice of counsel, than simple ignorance of the law is not a defense. >

I totally agree. >

Let me get this straight, George Santos put the Republicans in an impossible position? But Donald Trump never did, I don't believe it. >

it's just harder to defend the lgbt drag performer immigrant with their base...  literally they have hate machines built around this; and they get little leeway even if they are promoted for optic reasons >

Anyone have “First Drag Queen in US Congress is a Republican” on their 2023 bingo card? I sure as hell didn’t. >

I kinda did, everything is a projection with them. With the amount of vitriol being lobbied by them at the LGBTQ lately, it was obviously going to come out that one of them did something like this... >

So what you are telling me is that Rob DeSantis is having an affair with queer woke black people? >

Follow the money...

In total, Santos said he lent his campaign more than $700,000, telling WABC radio he used "the money I paid myself through the Devolder Organization" to fund it. The Devolder Organization was run by Santos, who claimed it provided "specialty consulting" for rich individuals, though there are few details about its business activities in the public domain.

I cannot wait until we find out where this money came from. These mysterious "rich individuals" are going to be revealed to be one very wealthy man. >

He's gonna wind up being one of those weird Russian sleeper agents, isn't he? >

Should have had a "Russian mafia" checkbox. >

It's under "Party Affiliation - Republican" >

That was good! >

This fella isn't nearly smart enough to not have left a ridiculous paper trail. They'll call it a "weaponized" prosecution but he's going to get destroyed. In the past the GOP would have run him out on day one. I miss the days when principles and accountability existed (even in small quantities). They're gone today. 
The Fletch of the current timeline. >

He put it all on Underhill and ended up on The Hill. >

The GOP will take no action against Santos. If the GOP does the right thing, they never do, there would be a special election and that district is likely to be won by a Democrat. >

Can the DOJ? I don’t know if they have jurisdiction over that. I would think so, but I am also jaded. >

So do Republicans now believe that it is legal to:

Create a private "consulting" corporation, as an LLC.
Accept money for unspecified "consulting" from anyone and everyone - foreign nationals, billionaires, corporations, etc.
Transfer the money from the LLC to your personal bank account.
Claim that this money was "my personal money", and give/loan it to your campaign?

If that is true, then we should just light all campaign finance laws on fire and let foreign countries participate in the politician auction. >

Legal if you have an (R) next to your name, illegal for (D)s >

Any normal person would find it impossible to be a republican these days, but a lot of people think bigotry is their most important personality trait. >

There are a few who are simply so apathetic and uninformed that they have no idea what is going on... their votes make them indistinguishable from the fascist though. >

This drinking acquaintance of mine, when an ad showing Jan6th footage showed on the TV: 
Him: "It wasn't the Republicans, that was Antifa"
Me: "Antifa attacked the Capitol to stop Biden from replacing Trump?"
Him: "Oh, that's right, it was the FBI."
Me:  "I'm gonna go sit on the other end of the bar now." >

Where is the impossible position?  If he is found guilty, he will be removed from Congress. His term ends in 23 months. So, he has to be charged, tried, found guilty, appeal, lose the appeal, appeal to Supreme Court and lose, then repubs will consider expelling him unless the election season has started. And if Santos is reelected, repubs will drop all charges because the voters have spoken.
So the impossible situation is the repubs are forced to talk about yet another criminal party member instead of what they really want to talk about: why Joe Biden is taking guns away from Christian fetuses >

I’d give you a gold medal if I could. Haha >

Meanwhile Al Franken got chased out of DC for a decades old risqué photo. >

That uh… wasn’t quite it. >

What was it, then? >

multiple allegations of forced groping, forced kissing, and an allegations demanding he had the right to do what he wanted because he is an entertainer. >

Without any hearings or actual investigation. >

He resigned, he wasn’t expelled. >

And? >

He chose to resign before a investigation >

Please say there's a russian connection here.... please! >

I thought I read on another thread Santos did get some cash from the cousin of a sanctioned Russian oligarch BUT i've read so many articles about this conman it's hard to remember everything. Maybe that's McCarthy's plan: every day another scandal involving this guy. At some point we won't be able to keep track of it all and while the attn is on Santos, repubs in Congress keep doing worse shit. Santos is like Trump w/all the scandals but not nearly as addicted to the attn as Trump and of course less cheeto looking >

Back in late 80s and early 90s, in WWF events on TV, people would wave shit signs like Ultimate Warrior for President, etc.
In thses shit shows, sometimes Donald Trump would show up. >

He appointed Vince's wife to his cabinet. >

my point is
Back in 90s it was joke.
In 2020s, the country is fucking joke. >


You are missing my point.

No, I was reinforcing it. >

Ridiculous. Republicans don't give a hoot about impossible positions. They are the lords of hypocrisy. >

How is it an impossible situation? 
They backed a literal attempt to overthrow the government. And suffered zero consequences. 
Anything less than that is child's play. 
Santos is going to be the next GOP nominee for president because he owns the libs. >

And the libs will pretend they didn’t play a hand in it. The lefts handling of him is embarrassing. Go to any thread on him and the top comment is a fucking meme. The second is outrage. This is literally trump part 2. Memeing him will raise him in name recognition, and there’s nothing more the right love than making the left angry. The lefts biggest play they have is lies he MAY have told, and outrage they think the right will have that they haven’t had yet. The left has been roasting him for the drag stuff, laughing at him and saying how pissed the right will be. But the rights kept it cool about the drag and all that leaves is the left, the party of inclusion, laughing at a man doing drag. The left will meme this guy into the White House, and personally, I’d rather not have that. >

The House is under GOP control. 
Who can start an investigation? The GOP. 
Who can censure Santos? The GOP.
Who can eject him from the House? The GOP. 
This is ALL on the GOP. They are not able to do a damned thing to hold ANY member of their caucus to ANY ethical standard. 
And, yes, shouting that from the rooftops for the next 2 years is an EXCELLENT plan. >

The Republicans don’t have the self-awareness to be put in an “impossible situation”. >

That took awhile to do. It was worth it. To be accurate though; picture him in a tee with whitey tidies wrapped in a comforter eating Cheetos & drinking a coke, watching housewives. >

I feel like this dude is on some foreign government intelligence agency’s pay role. That or he is an absolute moron. Or maybe both. >

The GQP got past "grab 'em by the pussy", I think they'll be okay with Santos' lies. >

"Impossible position"
That implies they have any sort of morals or care for rule of law. They don't. They care that Santos votes the right way, that's really about it. >

George Santos is another symptom.  The Republicans put themselves in this position.  You gotta dance with the you brought.  
Not that it matters.  They don't give a shit. >

The current GOP and our political system is such a shitshow, Santos is just another fart in the wind. They’ll ignore him, hand-wave away any inquiries (“We’re looking into it. If he’s done anything wrong, he’ll be punished” Lather, Rinse, Repeat) and continue with business as usual. With 102 new outrages every day, he’s just gotta keep his head down and wait for the news to cycle a few more times. He won’t get re-elected but, by then, it won’t matter. He’ll have his pension and lifetime medical coverage. In the meantime, he’ll cast his vote for whatever he’s told to 🤷‍♂️🙄🖕🏻 >

You mean the position where they just change the rules so he can stick around? >

Nothing is impossible for blatant hypocrites. >

They don't care >

The impossible situation is that they are a minority party and they need to hemorrhage representatives and voters in order to rehabilitate themselves. There is no quick and easy way to do this and still maintain power. >

Does it really though? They've pressed a worse double standard before. >

their voters don't care. this naive expectation that conservatives will react negatively to the very same dishonesty and viciousness that is the foundation of their whole ideology is the real impossible position. >

No it doesn’t. They have no shame or morals. Santos will stay in the seat until 2024 and be primaried. McCarthy will claim there’s nothing he can do about it. >

What is so "impossible" about saying "resign"? >

"puts Republicans in impossible position"
Republicans: We don't care lol. >

The GOP won’t fire George Santos or whatever his name is… 
Kevin McCarthy doesn’t have courage to do that, more so, he will always count his vote.
Funny how that’s the way things are in the GOP nowadays… the Party of Values is more like the Party of Hypocrites >

Damn pesky morality. >

The dude is a lay up case to prove R’s have even a modicum of integrity, and they are whiffing it like Charlie Brown trying to kick the football >

It won’t matter because republicans can openly break the law with no repercussions, apparently. >

This is no problem for the hypocritical and unethical Republicans. It will be promptly swept under the rug. >

It's not an impossible position.

Representative James Comer, a Republican who chairs the House Oversight Committee, has already said Santos will be "removed from Congress" if proven to have violated campaign finance laws.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has also said Santos will be removed if he is found to have "broken the law."

They'll just say "he's innocent until proven guilty, and we won't kick him out until after he's been convicted, which shouldn't be later than four or five years from now."
Or they'll just pretend they never said that and yell FAKE NEWS at anyone who says "But we've got a recording you saying just that." >

Impossible position = ethics vs power. We all know this is an easy choice for power hungry republicans. >

But not the fact that according to them he’s a groomer. You just can’t with these people. >

No it doesn't and they won't do jack shit about it. This is the GOP now, expect a lot more of this in the future. >

It came from fucking Putin, via the Republican Party, aka the Party of Traitors. >

There is nothing “impossible” about this situation.
The GOP will do nothing to Santos and he will vote on legislative matters just like everyone else in the house until his term is up, whereupon he will be renominated with the full support and backing of the GOP.
That’s far from “impossible” >

The only impossible position Republicans have is standing up straight >

The impossible position of screaming "HUNTER'S LAPTOP!!!!!1!1!!" at the top of their lungs until people get so tired of it they stop listening to anything....
I also think I hear some rumblings along the lines of: "You know, we never did get to the bottom of that Benghazi thing..."
If 4 years of Trump taught anything is that Republicans will never stoop so low as to hold a member of their own party responsible for anything. Well... unless he spills the beans about their secret drug-fueled orgies. >

So the "personal" loan was not really personal. Not surprising coming from a guy who makes a distinction between Jewish and jew-ish. >

Republicans are hypocrites, first, last and always. >

More impossible than their guy leading a coup that storms the capital?!? >

The weirdest thing is he keeps admitting to everything. >

Think I found where he came up with his current name… He’s wearing a Cartier ‘Santos’ wristwatch 😂 >

A Cartier Santos was very high up the list for me as something to work towards. Tasteful, versatile, and, well, timeless. I’m always looking at what people are wearing, and that MF may have seriously ruined that piece for me. Lol definitely a “me” issue here… but glad someone’s else noticed. 😂 >

George Santos loan admission puts Republicans in impossible position: MAGA loves 45, but should they take a chance on the uncertainty of a Trump Presidential nomination? 
Or, should they just install Santos as America's Great Dictator ('America's Big Dick') right now, since he's clearly so wonderfully adept at fraud, stealing, lying, and, he already has a good relationship with Russia.