George Santos pleads guilty

George Santos is reportedly pleading guilty to charges in Brazil in order to avoid serving prison time there. That’s not a huge surprise. Santos is under investigation for far worse crimes in the U.S. where he’s looking at a lengthy prison sentence, so Brazil would have had a difficult time extraditing him anyway.

Santos committed petty fraud totaling $1,300 in Brazil. But in the United States he’s under state and federal criminal investigation for a number of far bigger crimes, including allegedly funneling nearly a million dollars in Ponzi scheme money through his campaign and such. It’s easy to see why Brazil essentially decided to just let the U.S. punish him.

Of course House Republicans are perhaps wishing Brazil had dragged George Santos away, so he wouldn’t be their problem anymore. As much as they don’t want to lose that seat in a special election, Santos has become such an enduring headache that they’ve had to reluctantly agree to a bipartisan ethics probe just to try to get the media off their backs.

While Donald Trump’s indictment process is eating up all the headlines right now, the George Santos problem will be there waiting for House Republicans on the other side of this. More ugly Santos headlines are surely coming soon enough. And each of those new Santos scandals also ends up being a scandal for House Republicans, because they’re still afraid to expel him and take their chances in a special election.