George Santos should quit while he still can: legal expert

The House Ethics Committee is often slow to act, but once it does, watch out, a governance expert warned Monday. Now that George Santos is an official target, his days in Congress may well be numbered — and it may be wise for him to quit while he still has the power to do so under his own steam, the lawyer added.

Historical precedents, along with the “severity and breadth of the allegations against Santos,” suggest this “might be the beginning of the end” for the New York lawmaker, attorney Norm Eisen and Colby Galliher wrote in a CNN op ed. Eisen is a senior fellow in governance at the Brookings Institution, and Galliher is a senior research analyst at the think tank.

The committee announced last week in a statement that it’s investigating allegations against Santos of “unlawful activity” in his campaign, failure to disclose required information, violating federal conflict-of-interest laws, “and/or engaging in sexual misconduct toward an individual seeking employment in his congressional office.”

Santos quickly noted that he is “fully cooperating” with the investigation and would make no further comment about it. He’s resisting calls to resign in the wake of a cascade of his outrageous lies about his parentage, education, work experience, wealth and questionable business practices.

But lawmakers in the past have stepped down rather than be ground up in an Ethics Committee probe, noted Eisen and Galliher. One was former New York Democratic Rep. Anthony Weiner, who quit when the panel launched a probe after the congressman tweeted a raunchy photo of himself and then admitted to exchanging lewd messages and photos with a number of women.

“Resignation ends the committee’s jurisdiction, and so concludes these politically painful inquisitions,” the men pointed out in the op-ed, indicating that quitting could be Santos’ savviest move just now.

Whatever he opts to do, Santos has already achieved a notable accomplishment, the op ed snidely added: He has united a “sizable chunk of Congress [to] elicit bipartisan condemnation.”

The House Ethics Committee, divided evenly among Democrats and Republicans, voted unanimously to investigate Santos.

Check out the complete op ed at this link,

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‘Grave threat’: Liberal justice unleashes fury over ‘indefensible’ ruling



U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor unleashed fury on her conservative colleagues for their decision overruling a lower court and giving the Trump administration the go-ahead to significantly slash the workforce of the Department of Education.

"That decision is indefensible," she wrote on Monday.

"When the Executive publicly announces its intent to break the law, and then executes on that promise, it is the Judiciary’s duty to check that lawlessness, not expedite it," she continued.

"Two lower courts rose to the occasion, preliminarily enjoining the mass firings while the litigation remains ongoing. Rather than maintain the status quo, however, this Court now intervenes, lifting the injunction and permitting the Government to proceed with dismantling the Department. That decision is indefensible. It hands the Executive the power to repeal statutes by firing all those necessary to carry them out. The majority is either willfully blind to the implications of its ruling or naive, but either way the threat to our Constitution’s separation of powers is grave. Unable to join in this misuse of our emergency docket, I respectfully dissent."

It was another decision along ideological lines with a 6-3 ruling.

According to Sotomayor, the Department of Education was established by Congress, and thus, only the legislative branch "has the power to abolish the Department.

Read the dissent here.

‘We’re not recording, right?’ Ken Paxton aide unwittingly spills on secret plan



A top deputy for Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton unknowingly spilled the Republican administration's plan to undermine clean energy efforts in favor of the oil and gas Texas is known for, according to reporting in Rolling Stone.

Reporter Lauren Windsor obtained a secret recording of Paxton's top deputy, First Assistant AG Brent Webster, speaking in January to a group of conservatives and fossil fuel advocates.

“We’re not recording this, right?" Webster is heard saying. "Please don’t quote me, because I’m telling the inside story on this.”

On the recording, Webster "recalled how his office moved to cut off lucrative bond business to Wells Fargo," Windsor wrote. "Webster then shared how he, in a private dinner at the governor’s mansion with Gov. Greg Abbott, Paxton, and the bank’s execs, told the bank Texas could 'reinstate the bond market' if it left the Net Zero Banking Alliance," with a mandate to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.

When the Wells Fargo team seemed to balk, Webster bragged that he could easily file an antitrust lawsuit against them "right now."

The Texas AG's office was successful using the method against BlackRock and other major management firms" in the past. Windsor wrote. So much so that when Webster called up Wells Fargo and warned, 'you guys might be next,' it worked."

Wells Fargo left the Net Zero Banking Alliance a week later, Webster said, and then all the banks "started dropping like flies."

Once the banks abandoned the clean energy crusade, "Paxton allowed them to get municipal bond business again," Windsor wrote. She was unable to obtain comment from Paxton's office for the piece.

Read The Rolling Stone article here.