Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) was apparently grateful enough that Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) voted against removing him from Congress that he sent the Democrat a thank-you note.
But he probably won’t be sending any more of them based on Raskin’s response.
Raskin, a longtime constitutional law professor and attorney, was one of 31 Democrats who voted against expelling Santos from Congress, despite the Republican being indicted on federal charges. Raskin said that doing so would be “a terrible precedent to set” since Santos “has not been criminally convicted yet of the offenses cited in the resolution, nor has he been found guilty of ethics offenses in the House internal process.”
On Friday, Santos sent letters thanking Raskin and the other members of Congress who voted against his expulsion for standing up “for the principals [sic] of due process and the presumption of innocence until proven guilty.”
But if Santos thought Raskin’s vote meant he was in the Democrat’s good graces, he was sorely mistaken.
First of all, Raskin made a point of marking up the letter, pointing out the mistakes and writing at the bottom that he wished “someone had proofread it first.”
He also offered some personal advice to Santos in the margin: “It’s not shameful to resign.”
You can see Santos’ letter and Raskin’s remarks below courtesy of Axios’ Andrew Solender.
Of course, people on social media had thoughts.
As of Friday afternoon, Santos hadn’t responded to Raskin’s corrected version of his thank-you note, but don’t expect him to take the Maryland Democrat’s career advice.
Santos said on Friday that he plans to run for reelection in New York even if he’s expelled from Congress.