NEW YORK (AP) — President Donald Trump said Friday that he had commuted the sentence of former U.S. Rep. George Santos, who is serving more than seven years in federal prison after pleading guilty to fraud and identity theft.
The New York Republican was sentenced in April after admitting last year to deceiving donors and stealing the identities of 11 people, including members of his own family, to donate to his campaign.
He reported to the Federal Correctional Institution in Fairton, in southern New Jersey, on July 25 and is housed in a minimum-security prison camp with fewer than 50 other inmates.
“I just signed a commutation, releasing George Santos from prison, IMMEDIATELY,” Trump posted on his social media platform.
“George Santos was a kind of ‘rogue,’ but there are many rogues throughout our country who are not forced to serve seven years in prison,” he wrote.
Andrew Mancilla, one of Santos’ lawyers, said Friday that he was “very, very happy with the decision,” although he said it is unclear at this time when Santos will be released.
“The defense team applauds President Trump for doing the right thing,” Mancilla said by phone. “The sentence was too long.”
Santos has been in prison for 84 days. During his time behind bars, he wrote regular dispatches in a local Long Island newspaper, The South Shore Press.
In his latest letter, published on October 13, Santos pleaded directly with Trump, citing his loyalty to the president’s agenda and the Republican Party.
“Sir, I appeal to your sense of justice and humanity, the same qualities that have inspired millions of Americans to believe in you,” he wrote. “I humbly ask that you consider the unusual pain and hardship of this environment and allow me the opportunity to return to my family, my friends and my community.”
A prominent former House colleague, U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, also urged the White House to commute her sentence, saying in a letter sent just days after her prison bid that the punishment was “a grave injustice” and the product of judicial overreach.
The judge in Santos’ case had agreed with federal prosecutors that a harsher sentence was warranted because Santos did not appear remorseful, despite what he and his lawyers claimed.
Santos’ commutation is Trump’s latest high-profile act of clemency for former Republican politicians since he retook the White House in January.
In late May, he pardoned former U.S. Rep. Michael Grimm, a New York Republican who pleaded guilty in 2014 to underreporting wages and income at a restaurant he ran in Manhattan.
He also pardoned former Connecticut Gov. John Rowland, whose promising political career was upended by a corruption scandal and two stints in federal prison.
Trump himself was convicted in a New York court last year in a case involving hush money payments. The case was mocked as part of a politically motivated witch hunt.
Santos was once an up-and-coming star of the Republican Party.
He became the first openly gay Republican elected to Congress in 2022, winning a House seat representing parts of Queens and Long Island.
But Santos was in office for less than a year after it was revealed that he had fabricated much of his life story, which in turn led to investigations into how the then-unknown politician had financed his winning campaign.
The son of Brazilian immigrants, Santos had claimed to be a successful business consultant with Wall Street credibility and a sizable real estate portfolio.
He finally admitted that he had never graduated from Baruch College, nor had he been a standout player on the Manhattan College volleyball team, as he had claimed. I had never worked at Citigroup and Goldman Sachs.
He wasn’t even Jewish. Santos insisted that he meant he was “Jewish” because his mother’s family had a Jewish background, even though he was raised Catholic.
In truth, the then 34-year-old man was struggling financially and was even facing eviction.
Santos was accused in 2023 of stealing from donors and his campaign, fraudulently collecting unemployment benefits and lying to Congress about his wealth.
Within months, he was expelled from the United States House of Representatives, becoming only the sixth member in the chamber’s history to be ousted by his colleagues.
Santos pleaded guilty the following year just as he was going to stand trial.
__
Associated Press writer Michael R. Sisak contributed to this report.