President Donald Trump on Friday commuted the prison sentence of former congressman George Santos, ordering his immediate release.
“George Santos was somewhat of a ‘rogue,’ but there are many rogues throughout our country who aren’t forced to serve seven years in prison,” Trump said on Truth Social.
“Therefore, I just signed a commutation, releasing George Santos from prison IMMEDIATELY,” he added.
The former New York legislator pleaded guilty in August 2024 to fraud and identity theft, after inflating fundraising figures and falsifying donor names during the 2022 election cycle.
He served for a brief time as a U.S. Representative for New York’s 3rd congressional district after winning the congressional seat in 2022, but soon faced public vitriol due to inconsistencies on his resume. He was revealed to have fabricated his education, work history, and personal heritage.
In his financial misconduct case, some of the identities he stole to make donations to his campaign—totaling thousands of dollars—belonged to his own family members.
Santos allegedly used funds for personal expenses, including luxury clothing and credit card payments, rather than campaign purposes, in violation of campaign finance laws.
In December 2023, he became the sixth person in history to be ousted from the House of Representatives.
Federal prosecutors said Santos’s actions were a blatant attempt to defraud. They charged Santos with 23 counts, including wire fraud, money laundering, and identity theft.
He was sentenced in April by U.S. District Judge Joanna Seybert, who imposed a term of 87 months—or more than seven years—plus three years of supervised release and restitution payments in excess of $373,000. The judge cited the serious nature of the charges, which included 11 victims, as justification for the sentence.
Santos’s former campaign treasurer was sentenced to three years of probation.
In his announcement on Truth Social, Trump said the commutation is a corrective measure.
“George has been in solitary confinement for long stretches of time and, by all accounts, has been horribly mistreated,” Trump said. “Good luck George, have a great life.”
Santos reported to the Federal Correctional Institution in Fairton, New Jersey, a minimum security facility, on July 25. If released immediately, as is expected, he will have served around three months.
Ed Martin, the U.S. Pardon Attorney, said on social media he was “honored” to play a “small role” in Santos’s pardon.
“Thank you, Mr. President for making clemency great again,” he wrote on social media platform X.
