Embattled Republican Rep. Tony Gonzales announced Monday that he would step down from Congress, just days before he faced the possibility of a high-stakes vote that could have made him the seventh member to ever be expelled from the House.
Seems like the GOP waited for a Dem to resign in order to force Gonzalez out.
Good riddance!
Those two resignations in quick succession Monday night amounted to a stunning flurry of accountability, and a sudden turn in a months-long saga for the Texas Republican. Though Gonzales had faced calls from his own party leadership to abandon his reelection bid, he had until Monday been able to remain in his job.
House GOP leaders knew they couldn’t afford to lose his vote and had privately acknowledged that losing him would hurt their voting margin, making it much harder to accomplish Trump’s agenda. (Johnson has not been in favor of expelling members in the past, which he has said required a complete investigation by the House Ethics Committee.)But the calculation inside the GOP began to change as Democrats appeared increasingly likely to back expulsion for their own member, Swalwell, as he faced allegations of sexual misconduct, including from a former aide.
Many of the most vocal lawmakers — including Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida, who had notably called to expel Gonzales even though it would hurt the GOP’s margins — are also involved in Congress’ ongoing investigation into how the federal government mishandled the investigation into serial abuser Jeffrey Epstein.
The dramatic push for resignations marked a stunning moment on Capitol Hill.
4·10 hours ago