OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) gave back better than he got from Sen. Mitt Romney after the Utah Republican ambushed him over his appointment of a controversial GOP lawmaker to committees.
McCarthy was asked by a CNN reporter to respond to comments made to the network by Romney, who criticized Rep. George Santos for mingling with senators and President Joe Biden following his State of the Union address. Santos is in hot water for embellishing his professional record and other personality traits.
“I didn’t expect that he’d be standing there trying to shake hands with every senator in the United States,” Romney told reporters while leaving the building. “That’s a given. And given the fact that he’s under ethics investigation, he should be sitting in the back row and staying quiet instead of parading in front of the president and the people coming into the room.”
“If you look at like he said, he says he knows that he embellished his record. Look, embellishing is saying you got an A when he had an A-minus. Lying is saying you graduated from a college you didn’t even attend. He shouldn’t be in Congress,” he continued. “And they’re going to go through the process and hopefully get him out but he shouldn’t be there.”
Romney was then asked if he was disappointed that McCarthy was sticking by Santos, to which he replied, “yes.”
Per the Western Journal, Romney never called on Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell of California to resign after he was outed as having had a sexual relationship with a suspected Chinese spy. The outlet also noted that Romney never called on Democratic Senate colleague Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut to step down after lying about serving in Vietnam; he did not.
When CNN confronted McCarthy about the Utah Republican’s comments, the Speaker did not take the bait but instead responded, “Romney should be disappointed that Swalwell hasn’t resigned.”
Santos flipped New York’s 3rd Congressional district and secured another House seat for the GOP during the midterm elections.
“Santos defeated Democratic Robert Zimmerman, who was vying to fill the Long Island seat after Democratic Rep. Tom Suozzi announced he would be retiring to take a stab at New York governor. Suozzi came in a distant third in the Democratic primaries in the governor’s race, but Santos secured his place in Congress by running on cutting taxes, boosting border security, and rallying against cashless bail,” Fox News reported. “The Associated Press called the race shortly after 1:30 a.m. once the Republican held a lead of 54.2% of the vote over Zimmerman’s 45.8%, with 90% of the votes already counted. The Santos-Zimmerman race was the first time two openly gay men ran against each other in a congressional election.”
As for his misstatements and fabrications, he has addressed those, as well as the House Ethics Committee investigation that has been launched against him.
“With the ongoing attention surrounding both my personal and campaign financial investigations, I have submitted a request to Speaker McCarthy that I be temporarily recused from my committee assignments until I am cleared,” Santos said in a statement late last month. “This was a decision that I take very seriously.”
“The business of the 118th Congress must continue without media fanfare,” he continued. “It is important that I primarily focus on serving the constituents of New York’s Third Congressional District and providing federal-level representation without distraction.”
“To my constituents, I remain committed to serving the district and delivering results for both New York’s Third Congressional District and for the American people,” Santos added.
The Daily Wire noted further:
Santos has already admitted that he fibbed about working for financial titans Goldman Sachs and Citigroup; he also admitted that he did not graduate from college. Furthermore, Santos admitted that he embellished some of the details of his personal life, his religion, and his sexuality.
The New York Times reported earlier this month that law enforcement officials in Brazil “intend to revive fraud charges” against Santos stemming from an incident in 2008 that involved a checkbook that was allegedly stolen.
