George Santos is out of prison and Mike Johnson is now facing significant criticism after telling Fox News correspondent Peter Doocy that he'd happily welcome the disgraced politician back to Congress.
Santos—who since arriving on the political scene faced allegations of fabricating his background, misusing campaign funds for luxury items and Botox, and leaving a trail of victims behind him as a known fraud and identity thief—received a seven-year sentence for crimes that the U.S. attorney for the eastern district of New York argued “made a mockery” of the electoral process.
The sentence Santos received sits at the high end of the sentencing guidelines, combining roughly four to five years for fraud-related charges with a mandatory two-year minimum for aggravated identity theft. However, he's now out of prison after he was granted clemency by President Donald Trump.
When asked by Doocy if he would welcome Santos back to Congress now that Santos told the network "he would not rule out a congressional bid," Johnson said:
“Well, of course. I mean, that’s our system. If the people duly elect a representative, then we will welcome them into the body. That would be the job of a speaker.”
"I was exposed to the expulsion of Santos initially because he had not been prosecuted, it had just been allegations against him. But look, again, if we're going to be intellectually consistent and if we're going to follow Scripture, if someone's turned their life around and if they want to do the right thing, then they should be open to that."
You can hear what he said in the video below.
However, Johnson's assurance that Santos would be seated under this hypothetical situation contrasts significantly from his response to threats of legal action from Democrats over his refusal to swear in Democratic Representative-elect Adelita Grijalva weeks after her election.
Though Grijalva was overwhelmingly elected by her constituents several weeks ago, Johnson has said the outrage "was a publicity stunt by a Democrat Attorney General in Arizona who sees a national moment and wants to call me out."
Critics have pointed out that delaying Grijalva’s swearing-in effectively prevented Democrats from forcing a vote to release the Epstein files, a move Republicans had been obstructing for weeks.
He was swiftly called out.
Santos' release came just weeks after he, in a letter to the South Short Press, said he was placed in solitary confinement after a right-wing group warned his lawyer that “people were plotting to kill me in prison.” He added that officials initially denied him his daily hour of outdoor time, a restriction that was lifted only after he filed a complaint.
However, Santos told his followers in April that "no matter how long I go away I want and demand I be kept in solitary confinement for the entire duration."
For months, Santos sought to generate sympathy, asserting that "no one on the outside ever thinks about what these places look like, let alone who’s inside" and that "society writes us off, labels us, forgets us.”
Give it time—it won't be too long before he's embroiled in his next scandal.
