
(DailyVantage.com) – Despite being kicked out of Congress recently and his ongoing legal battle against charges of fraud, identity theft and other crimes, former Republican New York representative George Santos said that he still wants to return to the Lower House someday.
“I’m not done with public service. I want to go back to Congress,” the 35-year-old flamboyant former legislator told Frank Morano on the latter’s WABC radio show, “The Other Side of Midnight”.
“I’m not saying today. I’m not saying tomorrow,” Santos told the radio jockey, saying that he still had “a lot of things I need to take care of” and that he would work to “regain the trust of the American people.” His ultimate goal, Santos said, was to “root out the rot in our federal government.”
His statements now are a stark contrast though, from his sentiments just moments before he was expelled from Congress last November 30. “To hell with this place,” he said before walking off the floor of the House of Representatives.
Citing the criminal charges against him and multiple ethics violations, representatives from both parties voted, 311 to 114, to kick Santos out of Congress. In a rare moment of solidarity, 105 Republicans voted with most of the Democrats to pass the resolution to give Santos the boot. Prior to the vote, there were calls for Santos to resign, but he refused to do so. He has called the House Ethics Committee investigation against him “a joke” and an act of “political assassination”.
Santos appeared in public recently when he attended a hearing at the Central Islip federal court in New York on the case against him over alleged embezzlement and identity fraud. Sporting thousand-dollar sneakers, he told reporters that his “feet hurt” and said that talks with the prosecution on a plea deal were going well.
The self-proclaimed “former congressional icon” has also made headlines for joining celebrity-greeting request app Cameo, where he claims to have earned hundreds of thousands of dollars in the short span of time he has been on it. He also claims that comedian Jimmy Kimmel owes him more than $20,000 after the former sent in a bunch of greeting requests through the app as a prank and then aired Santos’ responses on his show.
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