President Donald Trump granted clemency on Friday evening to George Santos, whose lies about his biography and misuse of campaign funds emerged after he won a seat in Congress from New York and ultimately landed him in prison.
Santos had served less than three months of a seven-year term for wire fraud and identity theft when Trump announced in a social media post that he would commute the rest of the sentence.
The president cited the former New York lawmaker’s political support in the announcement.
“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,” Trump wrote in the post. “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.”
In imposing the prison sentence in April, U.S. District Judge Joanna Seybert decried Santos’ “flagrant thievery,” describing him as “an arrogant fraudster talking out of both sides of his mouth.” The former lawmaker wept as the sentence was announced, telling the court: “I betrayed the confidence entrusted to me by constituents, donors, colleagues and this court.”
His crimes spanned a range of fraudulent activity. He acknowledged he used his campaign fundraising apparatus for personal gain and admitted to submitting false reports to the FEC during his congressional run. He also admitted to stealing the personal identity and financial information of elderly and cognitively impaired campaign donors.
He admitted to stealing from donors by persuading them to contribute money to a company that he claimed was a social welfare organization or super PAC, and then using their contributions to put himself up at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas, shop at Hermès, Louis Vuitton and Brooks Brothers, pay off his credit cards and gift himself thousands of dollars in cash.
But Santos was perhaps best known for scores of lies he told about his educational and professional background, many of which were revealed by the criminal investigation and a separate congressional inquiry. He also advanced other falsehoods, including that his mother died in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Santos had repeatedly sought clemency from Trump since the president’s reelection last year. After reporting to prison, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene sent a letter to the Department of Justice to formally request Santos’ sentence be commuted.
In his social media post, Trump compared Santos’ actions to those of Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal, an administration critic who has admitted that he mischaracterized his military service by several times suggesting he had served in Vietnam during the war when he was, in fact, stationed in the U.S.
“This is far worse than what George Santos did, and at least Santos had the Courage, Conviction, and Intelligence to ALWAYS VOTE REPUBLICAN!,” Trump said of Blumenthal’s statements.
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