 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 nine family members receiving money from foreign destinations 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, well, and I'm just going, I'm getting back to that. I'm going to fight my battle. I'm going to deliver. I'm going to fight the witch hunt. I'm going to take care of clearing my name, and I look forward to doing that. That was just the small portion of Congressman George Santos' comments to the press after he was released from jail because, as you've probably heard by now, yes, George Santos was arrested today after he surrendered himself. Now, as you just saw, he is remaining defiant and calling this a witch hunt in true Trumpian form, which I think is pretty appropriate, honestly, considering that he's perhaps the only other politician to lie as much, if not more, than Donald Trump. So it makes sense that he would pursue the Trump strategy of just calling this a witch hunt. But before I show you even more of the ridiculous claims that he made to the press after he was released, I want to get to the specific details about the 13 count federal indictment that was just unsealed. As AP explains, among the allegations, prosecutors say Santos induced supporters to donate to a company under the false pretense that the money would be used to support his campaign. Instead, they say he used the money for personal expenses, including designer clothes and his credit card and car payments. Santos also was accused of lying about his finances on congressional disclosure forms and applying for and receiving unemployment benefits while he was employed as regional director of an investment firm that the government shut down in 2021 over allegations that it was a Ponzi scheme. So there are multiple layers of criminality here, but I want to focus specifically on unemployment insurance fraud for a moment because in a statement released by the Eastern District of New York Attorney General's Office, they alleged that Santos collected $24,000 worth of unemployment insurance while he wasn't even eligible since he was employed at the time, making a salary of $120,000 per year. However, to make matters even more ridiculous, his place of employment was shut down for being a Ponzi scheme. So he was employed, but applied for unemployment insurance while falsely claiming that he was eligible, but the investment firm that did employ him was shut down for allegedly being a Ponzi scheme. It's like you only hear about these types of things in movies. Like it feels like this man believed life was a video game and he was doing like some sort of a crime speed run, trying to rack up the highest score imaginable by breaking as many laws as he could simultaneously. It's it's cartoonishly corrupt here. And we're just talking about one of the alleged crimes here. But the irony here and why I wanted to focus on this specifically is because Republicans often complain about fraud with regard to our social safety net programs, such as food stamps, unemployment insurance. And they use the fraud as a justification to cut these programs, even if it's the case that like fraud is is minimal. Right. Meanwhile, it's Republicans like George Santos abusing the system. Like he's the one who's committing the fraud you all are complaining about. The call is coming from inside the house, but yet they're still going to point the finger at poor people. Now, furthermore, George Santos tweeted this about New York in 2021 from Miami Beach, mind you, quote, crime is at an all time high in New York. We need the state's elected officials to do their job and keep us safe. Nine of the recently released criminals from Rikers Island are behind bars three weeks after their politically charged release. We are in desperate need of law and order in New York. People are desperate for law and order, he claims, while being an alleged criminal that was just released because he's wealthy and he can afford to pay the bond. And also, he's comically calling this a witch hunt. It's not a witch hunt to go after poor people. But it is a witch hunt to go after powerful politicians. It's just it's so comically absurd. It's laughable. And I also find it funny that he used campaign funds to buy designer clothing, but yet he still looks like shit. What a fucking joke this man is. Now, he pled not guilty and he was released on five hundred thousand dollars bond after he was arraigned, but he made some other comments to the press that I have to talk about here because he's totally convinced that everything is going to be just fine and he's not resigning. In fact, he's still running for reelection. Are you planning on running for reelection? Yes, I am. And why should 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 far time away from that. Yeah. So in case you were wondering if he'd he'd calls for his resignation, there's your answer there. But there's one more clip that I want to play for you because he also claims that he's probably going to chair committee one day. And his tone here is weird. It seems like he's being sarcastic, but also telling the truth at the same time. Like he actually believes this, but let's listen. Well, look, I go, wait, 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. So that video is wild to me because he's maintaining his innocence while simultaneously suggesting that he can still go on to have a successful career in Congress, even if he's convicted since so many corrupt criminals already hold positions of power in Congress, which is kind of a tacit admission that he knows he's guilty. But nonetheless, I hate to say this, but he's not necessarily wrong, right? We have a criminal justice system that overwhelmingly favors the rich and powerful hell. We've effectively legalized bribes for members of Congress. So he's correct that there's a lot of corrupt criminals in Washington, D.C. The difference, however, between them and George Santos is that he was stupid enough to be a little bit more brazen about it. I mean, if he wanted to buy designer clothes, all that he had to do was not directly break the law by using campaign finance funds to make these purchases. All he had to do was wait a couple of years, do some insider trading after he gets inside information that none of the public is privy to. And like the rest of the crooks in Congress, he would have gotten enough cash within years to buy a mansion, a yacht and everything would have been peachy keen, but he just couldn't help himself. He's a pathological liar, and it's clear that you can see the effect that Trump is having on American political discourse. I mean, decades ago, could you imagine a politician not resigning after facing multiple scandals like this? But now in the Trump era, you can absorb almost any blow, assuming you're able to just wait it out and ignore the criticism. I mean, if Watergate happened today, I think that it wouldn't be that big of a scandal, comparatively speaking, given everything that we've seen like an insurrection. Trump being found liable for defamation and sexual abuse. Like Watergate feels small in comparison to 2023 American politics, right? So it's just it's truly insane that we have so much corruption and criminality in our system. And those politicians, oftentimes they're rewarded for it. Trump, for example, is the is the leading Republican candidate after trying to overthrow the fucking government. So the difference, though, between Trump and Santos, however, despite the similarities is that Trump actually has the GOP's base on lock. They like him. George Santos, however, is not liked even by his own constituents. Seventy eight percent of them want him to resign. But either way, I mean, he's convinced that he can weather the storm. So what else can we all do if national Republicans refuse to hold him accountable by expelling him or even removing him from committee assignments? So, yeah, keep it up, George Santos. You're doing fucking great, dude. At a minimum, at least he's providing us with a lot of entertainment. And I do look forward to the biopic of George Santos that will inevitably be released in the future, because that is going to be very, very entertaining to watch.