Trump Commutes Santos’ Sentence, Orders Immediate Release
George Santos, the disgraced former congressman, was released from a New Jersey prison at approximately 10 p.m. Friday, according to his attorney. He served less than three months behind bars following a fraud conviction.
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| George Santos, former New York representative, pictured leaving federal court in Central Islip, N.Y., after his April sentencing. |
Former New York Representative George Santos, a controversial Republican known for his fabrications and public disgrace, was released Friday night from a federal prison after President Trump commuted his seven-year fraud sentence.
Santos’s attorney, Joseph Murray, confirmed that his client was freed from the Federal Correctional Institution Fairton in New Jersey shortly after 10 p.m. on Friday. “A great injustice has been righted,” Murray stated.
In a social media message, Trump indicated that political motivations played a key role in his decision, praising Santos for his shared viewpoints while drawing sharp contrasts with Democrats. Describing Santos as somewhat of a “rogue,” Trump argued that the former congressman’s sentence was unduly harsh considering the financial offenses involved.
The president also revealed that Santos’s personal accounts of his prison experience, published as a regular column in a Long Island newspaper, influenced his clemency decision.
“George has endured extended periods of solitary confinement and, by all reports, faced severe mistreatment,” Mr. Trump wrote on social media. “As a result, I have just signed a commutation, releasing George Santos from prison immediately. Best of luck, George—wishing you a great life!”
Santos, 37, began serving his sentence in July after pleading guilty to wire fraud and aggravated identity theft. He served less than three months of an 87-month term.
Additionally, according to a commutation document shared online by Ed Martin, the U.S. pardon attorney, Santos is no longer obligated to pay over $370,000 in court-ordered restitution to his victims.
This commutation reduces Santos’s sentence but does not erase his conviction. It forms part of a recent wave of political clemencies granted by Mr. Trump to his allies and prominent figures within his right-wing base.
For months, it appeared Santos—who gained political notoriety as a fervent supporter of Trump’s MAGA movement—would be excluded from such favors. Despite sweeping pardons for those involved in the January 6 Capitol attack, Santos’s earlier attempts to secure a sentence reduction had failed.
The commutation marks the latest dramatic turn in George Santos’s astonishing political saga — a journey that transformed him from an obscure Long Island conservative into one of the most notorious figures in modern American politics.
Santos first entered the national spotlight in 2022, when his surprising win in a traditionally Democratic district helped Republicans narrowly seize control of the House. Young, Brazilian American, and openly gay, his victory was hailed by some as a sign that the GOP was broadening its appeal.
But the celebration was short-lived.
Almost immediately after taking office, Santos came under intense scrutiny when The New York Times and other outlets uncovered that much of his personal and professional backstory had been fabricated. What followed was a stunning unraveling.
He falsely claimed Jewish heritage, saying he was descended from Holocaust survivors. He said his mother was in the World Trade Center during the 9/11 attacks. He even bragged about being a college volleyball star and a Wall Street veteran — lies that helped create the illusion of success, and supposedly justified his self-financed campaign with loans totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars.
None of it held up to scrutiny.
As each lie came to light, support among his fellow Republicans began to erode. Then came the legal fallout. In 2023, Santos was indicted on a range of federal charges, including wire fraud, identity theft, and campaign finance violations. Prosecutors alleged he had defrauded donors, misused campaign funds for personal luxuries, and even used a supporter’s credit card to steal $11,000.
Following a damning House ethics investigation that revealed George Santos had misused campaign donations on personal indulgences—including Botox, luxury clothing, cosmetics, and subscriptions to OnlyFans—Congress took swift action. In December 2023, more than 100 Republicans joined Democrats in voting to expel him, making Santos the first member in U.S. history to be ousted from the House without a federal conviction or ties to the Confederacy.
Less than a year later, after months of denying any misconduct, Santos pleaded guilty in his criminal case. He admitted to a series of fraudulent acts, including lying to Congress, embezzling campaign funds from donors, and illegally collecting unemployment benefits.
At his sentencing, then-Acting U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, John J. Durham, framed the conviction as a message to other would-be political grifters. “To Mr. Santos and others of that ilk who lie, steal identities, and commit fraud to gain public office: abusing our electoral process will land you in federal prison,” he warned.
On Friday night, a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office declined to comment on Santos’s release.
Santos’s attorney, Joseph Murray, offered high praise for President Trump in a public statement, calling him “the greatest president in U.S. history” and expressing gratitude for the commutation: “I’m so proud to be an American.”
The commutation of George Santos’s sentence is likely to spark political fallout, particularly among Republicans in Long Island, where congressional seats have become fiercely competitive in recent election cycles.
Representative Nick LaLota, a fellow Long Island Republican and one of the most vocal advocates for Santos’s expulsion, sharply criticized the decision. While avoiding direct mention of Donald Trump, LaLota posted on social media Friday evening that Santos “didn’t merely lie — he stole millions, defrauded an election, and his crimes (for which he pled guilty) warrant more than a three-month sentence.”
While Santos remains widely unpopular among mainstream Republicans in New York, he continues to draw support from a fringe of far-right MAGA-aligned lawmakers beyond the state. Several of them had publicly lobbied for his release.
Among the most prominent was Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, who praised Trump’s decision. “Thank you @realDonaldTrump for commuting George’s sentence. It was the right thing to do,” she posted late Friday night.
Greene also noted that she had spoken with Santos directly. “He is extremely grateful to be released from prison, and he and his family are overjoyed,” she wrote.
Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene was among the first to advocate for George Santos’s release, sending a letter to the Justice Department in August urging clemency. At the time, former President Trump—already known for issuing pardons to loyal supporters—had not ruled out the possibility of intervening on Santos’s behalf. Still, in an interview with Newsmax, Trump said no one had formally made the request.
“He lied like hell,” Trump remarked in that interview. “And I didn’t know him, but he was 100 percent for Trump.”
On Friday, in his announcement of the commutation, Trump once again cited Santos’s political loyalty as a central reason for granting clemency. He framed their shared ideological alignment—particularly Santos’s unwavering support for the Republican Party—as justification for the decision.
Trump also used the opportunity to draw a sharp comparison with Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut, who has faced criticism for past misstatements about his military service during the Vietnam era.
“This is far worse than what George Santos did,” Trump wrote, referring to Blumenthal, “and at least Santos had the Courage, Conviction, and Intelligence to ALWAYS VOTE REPUBLICAN!”
In a statement to The New York Times, Senator Richard Blumenthal swiftly dismissed Trump’s defense of the commutation. “This rant is fabricated nonsense,” he said. “There’s no excuse for commuting George Santos’s sentence.”
Yet, according to Trump, his decision wasn’t based solely on political loyalty. He pointed to reports that Santos had endured prolonged stretches in solitary confinement as a motivating factor.
Since entering custody at a federal facility in southern New Jersey, Santos—never one to retreat from public attention—had been publishing a regular column from behind bars in The South Shore Press, a Long Island newspaper.
In a September column, Santos revealed he had been placed in the prison’s “Special Housing Unit” after his attorney alerted officials to a death threat made against him. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene also later said she received a letter from Santos confirming he was in solitary.
In his writings, Santos described his conditions as deeply isolating, once comparing his time in solitary confinement to “a slow-motion form of torture.” He noted that prison officials informed him he would remain in isolation until the investigation into the threat was complete.
Despite his campaign branding as a law-and-order conservative, Santos used his time in custody to repeatedly plead for clemency—efforts that ultimately paid off with Trump’s intervention.
On Monday, The South Shore Press published a personal plea from George Santos to former President Trump—a direct letter written from prison. In it, Santos described his incarceration as an experience “unlike anything most Americans could ever comprehend,” appealing to Trump not just as a political ally but as a man he believed valued second chances.
“Mr. President, I have nowhere else to turn,” Santos wrote. “You have always been a man of second chances, a leader who believes in redemption and renewal. I am asking you now, from the depths of my heart, to extend that same belief to me.”
Santos spent 84 days in federal custody before receiving clemency. According to the Bureau of Prisons, he had originally been scheduled for release in September 2031.
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