As he fights a growing list of federal fraud changes, Rep. George Santos (R-NY) vowed on Wednesday that he’d fight until “the bitter end”—but made clear he found the whole ordeal an annoyance. “It's frustrating to me that I have to sit here and now have to defend myself for things that I pay someone else to do,” Santos said while speaking to a gathering of reporters Wednesday. “‘The buck stops with me’ is an exaggerated term, especially when you’re a candidate ... I'm not an experienced politician,” he said. Santos insisted that “I did not create a fake campaign,” and that he was “pretty much denying every last bit of charges,” but ultimately equivocated on whether he improperly took COVID-19 relief money while making six-figures at an investment firm. “Even if I were to have taken two checks too many, let's make it very clear: Nobody in this country gets indicted for taking a check or two more than they are entitled to during unemployment period or in that case and completely extenuating circumstance of the pandemic,” he said.
