Republican Rep. George Santos of New York leaves the U.S. Capitol after being expelled from the U.S. Congress after a bipartisan vote for his removal on December 1, 2023. File Photo by Julia Nikhinson/UPI | License Photo
Oct. 17 (UPI) — President Donald Trump on Friday night said he commuted the sentence of George Santos, freeing the former Republican U.S. House member after just three months in federal prison.
Santos, who served in the House for less than one year, was sentenced to more than seven years in prison after pleading guilty to charges of committing wire fraud and aggravated identity theft. Santos, 37, reported to a federal facility in Fairton, N.Y., on July 25.
Santos also gained prominence for lying about his employment history and education, and information about his family.
“George has been in solitary confinement for long stretches of time and, by all accounts, has been horribly mistreated,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “Therefore, I just signed a Commutation, releasing George Santos from prison, IMMEDIATELY. Good luck George, have a great life!”
Trump left the White House on Friday to spend the weekend in Florida. He’s the keynote speaker Friday night at a fundraiser for the super PAC MAGA Inc.
A senior White House official told NBC News that Trump decided to help Santos this week and “many people wrote to him about it.”
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., had sought a pardon, which erases the legal consequences of a crime. A commutation only reduces the severity of the punishment.
Greene told NBC News this week that she had been in contact with the Department of Justice in recent weeks regarding the possibility, saying the sentence was overly harsh.
“George Santos never raped anybody, never murdered anybody, is not a child sex-trafficker. Why is he in solitary confinement?” she said. “That is an extreme treatment for someone for the crimes that he was convicted of.”
CNN didn’t receive comments from his lawyers.
Santos, before reporting to prison, told a Saudi outlet, Al Arabiya English, that he asked Trump for a pardon.
“I did not spend time in D.C. making friends,” Santos said. “I never made it to the president. I got stonewalled by the gatekeepers.”
From prison last week, Santos wrote a letter to Trump published in The South Shore Press: “Mr. President, I am not asking for sympathy. I am asking for fairness — for the chance to rebuild. I know I have made mistakes in my past. I have faced my share of consequences, and I take full responsibility for my actions. But no man, no matter his flaws, deserves to be lost in the system, forgotten and unseen, enduring punishment far beyond what justice requires.”
Trump took notice of Santos’ situation.
“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 posted on Truth Social.