The New York Republican was sentenced in April after admitting last year to deceiving donors and stealing the identities of 11 people \u2014 including his own family members \u2014 to make donations to his campaign.<\/p>\n
He reported to Federal Correctional Institution in Fairton, in southern New Jersey, on July 25 and is being housed in a minimum security prison camp with fewer than 50 other inmates.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just signed a Commutation, releasing George Santos from prison, IMMEDIATELY,\u201d Trump posted on his social media platform.<\/p>\n
Santos had appealed to the Trump administration to intercede within hours of receiving his sentence, insisting in social media posts and interviews that it was overly harsh and politically motivated.<\/p>\n
A prominent former House colleague, US Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, also urged the White House to commute his sentence, saying in a letter sent just days into his prison bid that the punishment was \u201ca grave injustice\u201d and a product of judicial overreach.<\/p>\n
The judge in Santos\u2019 case had agreed with federal prosecutors that a stiffer sentence was warranted because Santos didn\u2019t seem remorseful, despite what he and his lawyers claimed.<\/p>\n
Santos\u2019 commutation is Trump\u2019s latest high-profile act of clemency for former Republican politicians since retaking the White House in January.<\/p>\n
In late May, he pardoned former US Rep. Michael Grimm, a New York Republican who in 2014 pleaded guilty to underreporting wages and revenue at a restaurant he ran in Manhattan.<\/p>\n
He also pardoned former Connecticut Gov. John Rowland, whose promising political career was upended by a corruption scandal and two federal prison stints.<\/p>\n
Trump himself was convicted in a New York court last year in a case involving hush money payments. He derided the case as part of a politically motivated witch hunt.<\/p>\n
Santos was once an up-and-coming star for the GOP.<\/p>\n
He became the first openly gay Republican elected to Congress in 2022, flipping a House seat representing parts of Queens and Long Island.<\/p>\n
But Santos served less than a year in office 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 funded his winning campaign.<\/p>\n
A son of Brazilian immigrants, Santos had claimed he was a successful business consultant with Wall Street credibility and a sizable real estate portfolio.<\/p>\n
He eventually admitted he had never graduated from Baruch College \u2014 or been a standout player on the Manhattan college\u2019s volleyball team, as he had claimed. He had never worked at Citigroup and Goldman Sachs.<\/p>\n
He wasn\u2019t even Jewish. Santos insisted he meant he was \u201cJew-ish\u201d because his mother\u2019s family had a Jewish background, even though he was raised Catholic.<\/p>\n
In truth, the then-34-year-old was struggling financially and even faced eviction.<\/p>\n
Santos was charged in 2023 with stealing from donors and his campaign, fraudulently collecting unemployment benefits and lying to Congress about his wealth.<\/p>\n
Within months, he was expelled from the US House of Representatives — just the sixth member in the chamber\u2019s history to be ousted by colleagues.<\/p>\n
Santos pleaded guilty the following year just as he was set to stand trial.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The New York Republican was sentenced in April after admitting last year to deceiving donors and stealing the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":87697,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,898,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-87696","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-latest-news-ticker","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-top-news","12":"tag-top-stories","13":"tag-topnews","14":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87696","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87696"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87696\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87697"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}