President Donald Trump has commuted the seven-year prison sentence of former New York Rep. George Santos, allowing the congressman to walk free after just three months in prison.
Santos, kicked out of Congress in 2023 after a string of scandals, pleaded guilty to wire fraud, identity theft, and money laundering in August of 2024.
Prosecutors said he falsely claimed pandemic-era unemployment benefits, secretly spent donor money on personal luxuries, and lied about nearly every part of his background – from fake Wall Street jobs to false family tragedies.
“George Santos was somewhat of a ‘rogue,’ but there are many rogues throughout our Country that aren’t forced to serve seven years in prison,” the President wrote in a post to his Truth Social platform addressing the clemency.
Trump’s commutation not only frees Santos but also erases his $373,000 in restitution payment to victims, including a disabled veteran who has spoken out about Santos’ fraud, and many other past campaign donors.
“The people that he harmed, they deserve some money back. I don’t see how that can be wiped off of his sentence,” disabled veteran Richard Ostoff told CBS News. “He thinks he’s going to get into heaven with that stuff?” Osthoff claims that Santos took $3,000 from a fundraiser intended to cover treatment costs for his terminally ill service dog.
Federal prosecutors said the funds were meant to make victims financially whole again, but the decision to erase his restitution payments wipes that slate clean, part of more than $1 billion in fines and repayments voided under Trump’s clemency orders, per MSNBC.
Less than a year into his second term, Trump has granted clemency to over 1,600 people: quickly surpassing his first-term totals. His first acts of clemency included wide pardons for January 6 participants, fulfilling his key 2024 campaign promise to supporters who saw them as political prisoners.
The President has since extended mercy to anti-abortion activists prosecuted under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, and even to Democrats like ex-Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich.
Santos allegedly caught Trump’s attention after a smaller Long Island-based newspaper published an op-ed claiming “mistreatment,” with Santos claiming that he was spending lots of time in solitary confinement, according to The New York Times.
“George has been in solitary confinement for long stretches of time and, by all accounts, has been horribly mistreated. Therefore, I just signed a Commutation, releasing George Santos from prison, IMMEDIATELY. Good luck George, have a great life!,” Trump stated in his post to Truth Social.
For perspective, Former President Joe Biden technically has issued more acts of clemency (4,425) than any other president in American history, per the Pew Research Center. In a last-minute act, Biden even pardoned his son Hunter for multiple felony tax and gun-related criminal charges, after previously declaring that he would not.
In Trump’s first term, he comparably issued 238 acts of clemency.