U.S. President Donald Trump commuted the prison sentence of disgraced former New York Rep. George Santos on Friday.
Writing on his Truth Social platform, Trump said that the Republican’s seven-year conviction was unfair.
“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. “Therefore, I just signed a commutation, releasing George Santos from prison immediately. Good luck, George, have a great life.”
In his election campaign for New York’s 3rd Congressional District, representing parts of Long Island, and during his brief time in office from January to December 2023, Santos fabricated extensive elements of his background, including that his mother was Jewish and that his maternal grandparents survived the Holocaust.
After media reports revealed those claims to be false, Santos denied ever having claimed Jewish ancestry.
“I never claimed to be Jewish,” he told the New York Post in 2022. “I am Catholic. Because I learned my maternal family had a Jewish background, I said I was ‘Jew-ish.’”
In addition to the fabrications and exaggerations about his background, federal prosecutors determined that Santos was also engaged in criminal activity and indicted him on wire fraud charges in May 2023. He was subsequently expelled from Congress in December of that year in a bipartisan 311-114 vote.
Santos pleaded guilty in August 2024 to wire fraud and aggravated identity theft. He was sentenced to more than seven years in federal prison.
On Friday, Trump compared Santos’s fabrications to Sen. Richard Blumenthal’s (D-Conn.) past claim to have served “in Vietnam,” which The New York Times revealed in 2010 to be false.
“This is far worse than what George Santos did, and at least, Santos had the courage, conviction and intelligence to always vote Republican,” Trump wrote.
