Lead impeachment manager for Donald Trump’s second House trial, January 6 committee member, cancer survivor, and now—copy editor? Congressman Jamie Raskin added another line to his lengthy resume on Friday in a tart response to embattled New York Representative George Santos, who had penned a poorly written letter thanking the Maryland Democrat for voting against kicking him out of the House of Representatives.
Santos’s letter came two days after most Republicans and 31 Democrats voted against a resolution led by five of Santos’s fellow first-term New York Republicans who have been anxious to distance themselves from their disgraced colleague. The 179-213 tally fell far below the two-thirds majority needed to expel a House member.
“I am writing to express my gratitude to you for standing up to the principals of due process and the presumption of innocence until proven guilty,” Santos wrote. In copy edits handwritten on his copy of the letter and later reported by Politico, Raskin cheekily let Santos know that “principals” should have been “principles.”
“Dear Congressman Santos, I appreciate your note and only wish someone had proofread it first,” Raskin wrote. “Meantime, you should apologize to the people of New York for all of your lies and deceit. I know you must have thought you could get away with it all in the party of Trump, but the truth is resilient.” The Maryland representative ended the letter with a “P.S.”: “It’s not shameful to resign.”
Santos currently faces 23 federal charges, 10 of which came in a superseding indictment filed in early October. He has pleaded not guilty to all of the charges, which accuse him of lying about his wealth, illegally receiving unemployment benefits, and misusing campaign contributions, among other illegal acts. His trial is scheduled for September 2024, just before the election to decide whether the GOP can hold onto its razor-slim House majority.
A House Ethics Committee is also currently looking into Santos, and has reportedly already been in touch with 40 witnesses, examined more than 170,000 pages of documents, and approved 37 subpoenas. The committee is slated to announce its next steps later this month.
Raskin, a constitutional law professor, has argued that Santos should have the chance to go through his criminal trial and House ethics investigation. “I’m a Constitution guy,” he told Axios of his vote not to expel. “If and when Santos is convicted of these serious criminal offenses or ethics charges, I will certainly vote to expel. Until then, it’s a very risky road to go down, and we have to stick by due process and the rule of law, as obvious as the eventual result seems.”
Wednesday’s resolution, if passed, would have made Santos the sixth person ever to be expelled from the House in U.S. history, three of which were kicked out during the Civil War. The two recent expulsions over the past fifty years were members convicted on criminal charges.
Santos remains defiant in the face of the various investigations into his campaign of deceit. On Friday, he told CNN’s Manu Raju that he was planning on running again for Congress in 2024, and insisted that his constituents in New York’s 3rd congressional district didn’t vote for him last year based on the details of his fabricated life. “Nobody knew my biography. Nobody opened my biography who voted for me in the campaign,” he said. “Nobody elected me because I played volleyball or not. Nobody elected me because I graduated college or not. People elected me because I said I’d come here to fight the swamp, I’d come here to lower inflation, create more jobs, make life more affordable, and the commitment to America.”
Santos isn’t the only Republican whose statements of late could have used a proofread. In one of his first fundraising emails since taking the top House job, newly minted Speaker Mike Johnson vowed to “refuse to put people over progress,” sparking jokes from his Democratic counterparts. “House Democrats will continue to put people over politics,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said Friday on X, formerly Twitter. “Why is that an issue for our Republican colleagues?”