Let's listen in.
Oh, you're in front of me.
All right, all right.
We made it here.
Look at this.
All right,
so I know you all have questions.
A little closer come a little.
I know you all have questions.
I know that everybody's
been waiting for the moment
for me to come out and talk to you guys.
Look,
this is the beginning of the ability
for me to address and defend myself.
We have an indictment. We have all.
We have the information
that the government
wants to come after me on,
and I'm going to comply.
I've been compliant
throughout this entire process.
I have no desire
not to comply at this point.
They've been gracious in there.
Now I'm going to have to go and fight
to defend myself.
The reality is, is it's a witch hunt
because
it makes no sense that in four months,
four months, five months, I'm indicted.
You have Joe
Biden's entire family receiving
deposits from 99 family members,
receiving money from foreign
from foreign destination chains
into their bank accounts.
It's been years of exposing a lot of you
here have reported on them.
And yet no investigation
is launched into them.
I'm going to fight
I want and I'm just going
I'm getting back
that I'm going to fight my battle.
I'm going to deliver.
I'm going to fight the way
I'm going to take care
of clearing my name.
And I look forward to doing that.
Hold on. Hold on.
Hold on.
Hold on, hold on.
I would like the opportunity
for some of you guys
to ask some questions
in an orderly fashion,
and we'll start right here.
Go ahead, Rachel.
Why would you apply
for unemployment benefits
when you had a job making $120,000
a year?
Rachel, this is part of my defense.
This is inaccurate information.
And I will get to clear my name on this.
During the pandemic,
it wasn't very clear.
I don't understand
where the government
is getting their information,
but I will present my facts. So
how do you see prosecutors say
that you got over
$20,000 in unemployment benefits?
How was that acceptable, ma'am?
Like I said, my employment was changed
during the time.
I don't understand
where the government's coming from.
I'll present my defense.
Well, I gave you two Congressman,
what evidence do you have
that they don't have? I did extensive.
I have plenty of evidence
that we will now
be sharing with the government
in this case
to make sure
that I can prove that my innocence
Are you planning on running
for reelection? Yes, I am.
Do you know anybody believe you now?
Well, like I said,
I will prove myself innocent
and then we'll move from there.
And reelection
is a very hard time
away from the 730,000. Sorry.
Go ahead.
I'm sorry for blocking the $750,000.
They said that you reported that wrongly.
Do you have any comment to that?
Well, like I said,
I will be giving them all
I'll be delivering
all the finances of my company,
delivering all my finances
to them to dispel
their the Iraqi's accusation And again,
you will not resign. I will not resign.
Congressman,
did you get campaign donations
and use that money to buy
expensive suits? No, I did not.
Do you think you'll win reelection?
That's not up for me to know.
Elections are very tricky
and it's up to the people.
I trust them to decide what's best
for the lying in the past. What?
Why do you think
we'll make people believe you
this time around?
Well, look, like I said,
I've asked many times
I want to be judged by the work
I do in the body,
and I stay committed to that.
And you don't want Washington now.
Yes, I am.
I have to go back and vote tomorrow.
We have
one of the most consequential votes
in this Congress, which is a border bill.
And I'm very looking forward
to being there to be working right now.
Well,
I'm not going to address
just the speaker address.
Leadership.
I appreciate everybody's patience with
with my presence in Congress.
As you know, the media has its its,
you know, ways of doing things.
And I respect you guys.
I've maintained
good rapport with a lot of you guys.
I've spoken with a lot of you guys.
And I have the intention
to continuing that open door.
Some of you who are from the Hill
know how to find me.
Some of you here from the district
don't have a hard time finding me.
It's it's about keeping
in line of communication.
So I appreciate leadership
for being patient at this time
and for allowing the process to play out.
I think this is about innocent
until proven guilty.
This starts
I have my right to fight to prove
my innocence
as the government has a right to fight
to try to find me guilty.
And whatever charges,
why haven't
you show them the documents
to prove your innocence?
Until now?
Because you're being accused
for a long time.
Well,
because the media is
not jury or the judge.
So I will present that to the jurors.
And to the judge in this courthouse
and to the Congress.
Well, if Congress requested,
I will present it to them as well.
So are you sure
you can't negotiate a plea?
I'm feeling.
But it's hard for me because
I'm addressing I'm addressing
one of your colleagues here.
I don't want to give the back of you so
as usual,
Jodi, I
do my best to be a positive person.
Life is already as bad
as it gets out there.
I mean, so I I'm fine.
I'm good.
I believe.
I mean,
you're not talking about yourself
with so many investigations.
Well, look,
I the way I look at it,
I'll be a chairman of a committee
in a couple of years.
If you just look
at the standards of Congress,
look at the Senate
bill that help states recoup money.
Yet you're being alleged.
Well, it's alleged. Right. So it's.
So are you accusing me?
Are you
are you going to allow the process
to play itself
and allow me to clear my name?
That's my question to you.
You're because when I
first learned
about the charges against you
and also when
you talk
about the process of surrendering,
did they arrest you?
Oh, no.
I was very it was very amicable.
Very pleased.
All of these guys
did a phenomenal job
at what
we clearly came
right under your noses
and you didn't see us come in today.
And now we're leaving.
Obviously,
we're addressing
you guys had all the attention
to the world
to be out here with you guys.
I'm going to keep fighting.
I'm going to keep fighting
for what I believe in.
I'm going to keep fighting
to represent my district.
I'm going to keep fighting
to deliver results.
And now I have to keep fighting
to deliver,
you know, to to defend my innocence.
And I'm going to do that. And I
hope you should
resign and put your district
out of its misery. Will you do that?
Governor Holcomb
is entitled to her opinion.
I don't represent her.
She is not my constituent.
So I saw you in court today
with Congress.
I saw your face in court today.
I saw your face.
You looked understand?
So I had you looked pretty stressed
when when I saw you sit down
and the judge first started speaking.
What was going through your mind?
What are you feeling after
being in court today?
Well, when it's your first time
experiencing something of this nature,
I think everybody would show
some kind of stress. Right.
I, quite frankly, don't
believe I was stress.
I did the best I could
to just keep my composure.
I was I was fine.
But again,
this is
this has been an experience,
you know, for a book
or something like that.
And you have your fingers.
I appreciate you guys.
Here's what we'll do.
I will. Go on. Guys,
guys, guys.
I will.
You see,
that is information
you'll never get
because that is the media's
your intention is to go harass them
and make their life miserable.
You're not getting that.
All right, George
you described George Santos as defiant.
They're coming out of the courthouse
having pled guilty to 13 federal charges.
And he said in his words,
I will keep fighting.
He said, he will not resign.
He confirmed he's running for reelection,
which he had announced before
being charged federally here,
and notably using terminology
we've heard from the former
president frequently.
He described the charges
in the investigation as a witch hunt.
Yeah.
Taking a page out of former
President Trump
saying that this is a witch hunt,
that this is political
saying he doesn't understand
where the government got this evidence
for 13 federal charges,
federal counts of fraud,
including seven counts of wire fraud.
Three counts of money laundering,
one count of theft of public funds.
He was asked a question
about his employment status during COVID.
He's alleged to have
taken money
from the federal government
that was meant to help folks
that lost their jobs
because of the pandemic.
And he essentially said
that he doesn't know where the government
is getting their information,
but that he intends to fight this
and that he will
prove his case in court
by providing evidence and some of this.
Evan, walk us through this,
some of this information
that the government has we were aware of
because it's been aired in the press.
Some of it has not been.
Some of it is not been.
And the answer to Boris is question
and what what the
congressman is is asking the the place
that that the government got all of this
information is from him,
from the paperwork
he filed himself
That's a great point on all of this.
It is not a mystery.
This these documents right here detail
which you know,
what he filed in Congress what he filed
to the Department of Labor in
the state of New York,
saying that he was unemployed
when, in fact,
he was getting money
of a salary from from an investment job.
So, you know, this is paperwork.
This is a paperwork case.
And that's the problem
for the congressman,
which by the way, is paperwork
disclosures that
all members of all members.
He was not singled out to fill out these.
These are no one told them
no one told them to falsify
this paperwork.
And so that's the biggest problem for him
is that
this is not like a lot of indictments
are based on
sometimes, you know,
secret sources
that the FBI has informants.
They may well have witnesses
and they probably do,
which we don't know yet in this document.
But certainly what they have shown here
is based
basically on all of the paperwork
that this congressman himself filed
and which the government says is false.
We should note two of those 13
federal charges are for providing
false information to those disclosures
for the House of Representatives.