Santos fundraising off indictment: ‘The fight is real’

Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) fundraised off his indictment Wednesday, calling on supporters to “chip in” after federal prosecutors slapped him with more than a dozen criminal charges for misrepresenting his finances and misleading donors.

“The fight is real & I’m OVER the target, I need your support to keep me fighting for freedom,” Santos tweeted Wednesday afternoon.

“I’m already a top target of the Democrats for 2024,” he added on his fundraising website. “We need to start early and get prepared to keep this seat.”

The embattled first-term lawmaker Wednesday pleaded not guilty to 13 federal charges, including seven counts of wire fraud, three counts of money laundering, one count of theft of public funds and two counts of making materially false statements to the House of Representatives.

The majority of the charges center on Santos’s alleged use of campaign donations for personal expenses, such as purchasing designer clothing and paying off personal debts. Federal prosecutors accused the congressman of directing an unnamed individual to tell donors that the money would go toward campaign advertisements.

Following his arraignment at a federal courthouse in Central Islip, N.Y., Santos told reporters that he would not resign and that he still planned to seek reelection in 2024.

“This has been an experience, you know, for a book or something like that,” he told reporters outside the courthouse. 

Santos has been the subject of intense scrutiny throughout his first few months in office, after he admitted to lying about his personal and professional background on the campaign trail.

The New York Republican’s call for donations appeared to mimic former President Trump’s fundraising efforts from last month, after his own indictment over a 2016 hush money payment. Trump’s efforts were fairly successful, raking in more than $4 million in campaign contributions within 24 hours.