To Be Consistent with the George Santos Precedent, Raphael Warnock Must be Expelled from Congress

Representative George Santos was expelled from Congress for embellishing his resume and for allegations of misconduct, including the illegal diversion of campaign funds for personal uses.

Senator Raphael Warnock (D – GA) was Chairman of a “non-partisan” group that engaged in a massive violation of campaign finance laws in 2018. The “non-partisan” group led by Warnock spent millions of dollars illegally attempting to influence the outcome of the 2018 Georgia gubernatorial election between Stacey Abrams and Brian Kemp. Despite the dishonest and illegal spending by Warnock’s “non-partisan” group on behalf of Ms. Abrams, she lost that race. Raphael Warnock, who was Chairman of the “New Georgia Project” at the time, is now professing total ignorance of the actions his organization was engaged in. That is as unbelievable as anything George Santos ever said.

Representative Santos was expelled from Congress. If George Santos’ fabulism and misallocation of funds warranted his expulsion, then Senator Raphael Warnock needs to be promptly expelled from Congress too.

News broke a few weeks ago that the Georgia Ethics Commission unanimously voted to fine the New Georgia Project and its affiliated spinoff, The New Georgia Project Action Fund, $300,000 for violating state campaign laws and for failing to register as a political committee. As reported in a piece at The Hill titled “Nonprofit founded by Stacey Abrams secretly campaigned for her in 2018” these groups admitted that they violated the law by campaigning for Abrams.

The commission found the nonprofits raised upward of $4 million and spent more than $3 million to help Abrams and other 2018 candidates. The groups did not file as a campaign committee before receiving donations and failed to file campaign finance reports before the election, the commission found.

Of course, the New Georgia Project could not register as a partisan campaign committee because it’s a 501(c)(3) organization, for which partisan political activity is specifically prohibited. Per the IRS website a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organization cannot “participate in, or intervene in (including the publishing or distributing of statements) any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for public office.”

Further, according to the mission statement at the New Georgia Project’s website, ”New Georgia Project is a nonpartisan effort to register, civically engage, and build power with the New Georgia Majority–the large and growing population of Black, brown, young, and other historically marginalized voters in the Peach State.”

Raphael Warnock led this organization in a massive financial and political fraud. Donors who thought they were giving to a non-partisan organization to help “marginalized” voters were actually giving to an organization actively, and illegally, assisting the Stacey Abrams campaign. The New Georgia Project, with Raphael Warnock serving as its as Chairman, was also actively violating federal tax laws.

Do you remember how the media reported that our democracy was at risk of being subverted by Russian front groups because they bought $100,000 of ads on Facebook in 2016?

“Facebook says it sold $100,000 in ads to fake Russian accounts during presidential election; Most of the ads didn't mention a specific presidential candidate, Facebook said” [ABC News – 9/06/2017]

Yet, Raphael Warnock’s group illegally spent more than $3 million in Georgia alone in 2018 in an effort to subvert the legal election process.

As a refresher about George Santos’ expulsion from Congress, here is a link to an NBC News story reporting that a bipartisan majority of the House of Representatives, including 105 Republicans, had voted to expel him.

“House votes to expel indicted Rep. George Santos from Congress” [NBC – 12/01/2023]

Just 11 months into his first term in Congress, Santos has admitted to lying about his background but denied any wrongdoing and pleaded not guilty to the almost two dozen federal charges.

But he began losing significant support just before Thanksgiving after the bipartisan House Ethics Committee issued a damning 56-page report detailing allegations that he had deceived his donors, filed false campaign statements and used campaign money to fund his lavish lifestyle.

Among the things he spent campaign funds on were rent, luxury designer goods, personal trips to Las Vegas and the Hamptons, cosmetic treatments, including Botox, and a subscription to the adult-content site OnlyFans, the report said.

Santos was alleged to have deceived donors, to being dishonest about required campaign filings, and to misusing donated funds. The exact same is true of Raphael Warnock.

In summary, Santos lied, and so did Warnock. Santos was accused of misappropriating money, as was Warnock. But George Santos never diverted funds in an effort to subvert our democratic processes. Under Raphael Warnock’s leadership, there was an illegal effort to undermine election integrity and to illegally affect the outcome of a statewide election.

If George Santos’ actions warranted expulsion from Congress, so do Raphael Warnock’s actions.

[buck.throckmorton at protonmail dot com]

posted by Buck Throckmorton at 12:00 PM

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