A lawyer for Santos told the Associated Press that it remains unclear when his client would be released.<\/p>\n
“The defence team applauds President Trump for doing the right thing,” said Andrew Mancilla.<\/p>\n
“The sentence was far too long.”<\/p>\n
Santos’s downfall began after the New York Times in 2022 published an investigation revealing the freshman congressman had lied about his CV, including having a university degree and working for Citigroup and Goldman Sachs.<\/p>\n
From there, the lies continued to pile up, including allegations that he stole money from a fundraiser for a dying dog and that he lied about his mother surviving the 9\/11 terrorist attacks. Shortly afterwards, local and federal officials began to investigate.<\/p>\n
He was eventually charged with 23 federal felony crimes, and in 2023 he became the first expelled member of Congress in more than 20 years, and only the sixth in history.<\/p>\n
A report from the House ethics panel accused him of misusing campaign funds for personal benefits, including Botox and subscriptions on the OnlyFans website.<\/p>\n
Santos defeated a Democratic incumbent in 2022, flipping the district that encompasses parts of New York’s Long Island and Queens, where he grew up.<\/p>\n
Earlier this week, Santos published an open letter to Trump in the South Shore Press newspaper in Long Island, repeating his plea to be pardoned. <\/p>\n
The letter, which was titled a “passionate plea to President Trump” asked for “the opportunity to return to my family, my friends, and my community.”<\/p>\n
He wrote that he had been kept in solitary confinement after a death threat in August, and apologised for his actions. <\/p>\n
“Mr President, I am not asking for sympathy. I am asking for fairness – for the chance to rebuild,” he wrote.<\/p>\n
“I know I have made mistakes in my past. I have faced my share of consequences, and I take full responsibility for my actions. <\/p>\n
“But no man, no matter his flaws, deserves to be lost in the system, forgotten and unseen, enduring punishment far beyond what justice requires.”<\/p>\n
Trump has issued pardons to at least two other former Republican lawmakers since re-taking office in January.<\/p>\n
In May, he pardoned former congressman Michael Grimm, who pleaded guilty in 2014 to tax crimes.<\/p>\n
He also pardoned former Connecticut Governor John Rowland, who pleaded guilty in 2004 to corruption and fraud charges.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A lawyer for Santos told the Associated Press that it remains unclear when his client would be released.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":207709,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-207708","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=207708"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207708\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/207709"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=207708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=207708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=207708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}