Disgraced former congressman George Santos broke his silence after President Donald Trump unexpectedly commuted his sentence for wire fraud and aggravated identity theft.
During an interview on Sunday, Santos said he wanted to make it clear he was not “getting away” with his crimes.
“I understand people want to make this into ‘He’s getting away with it.’ I’m not getting away with it, I was the first person to ever go to federal prison for a civil violation … I don’t want to focus on trying to rehash the past and want to take the experience and do good and move on with the future. Repentance is an understatement. I have been dealt a second chance,” Santos said.
As part of his plea deal, Santos agreed to pay nearly $600,000 in restitution and forfeiture.
Asked on CNN’s “State of the Union” if he planned to pay back donors, Santos said he would “do my best to do whatever the law requires of me.”
According to the clemency grant, a photo of which was posted on X by U.S. Pardon Attorney Ed Martin, Trump granted Santos an “immediate commutation of his entire sentence to time served with no further fines, restitution, probation, supervised release, or other conditions.”
In an interview on Fox News’ “Fox & Friends Weekend,” Santos said, “I do not have any pendencies with the law anymore. I have no restitution. I have no probation.”
Santos, 37, was less than three months into serving a seven-year sentence in federal prison when President Trump shared the news.
In announcing the commutation on his social media platform, Trump said Santos had been “horribly mistreated” and called him a “bit of a ‘rogue,'” but “at least Santos had the Courage, Conviction, and Intelligence to ALWAYS VOTE REPUBLICAN!”
Santos pleaded guilty in August 2024 and admitted to claiming relatives had made contributions to his campaign when, in fact, they had not. Santos conceded he was trying to meet the fundraising threshold to qualify for financial help from the National Republican Congressional Committee.
He also stipulated that he committed other fraud, including charging donor credit cards without authorization and convincing donors to give money by falsely stating the money would be used for TV ads. He also stipulated he stole public money by applying for and receiving unemployment benefits during the pandemic to which he was not entitled.
Santos claimed Sunday that others, like former President Joe Biden, had also used their pardon power for politically charged reasons, “So pardon me if I’m not paying too much attention to the pearl-clutching of the outrage of my critics, and of the people, predominantly on the left, who are going to go out there and try to make a big deal out of something like this.”
“People are going to like me. People are going to hate me. It doesn’t matter whoever gets clemency in the future, or whoever that person might be,” he said. “I’m pretty confident if President Trump had pardoned Jesus Christ off the cross, he would have had critics. So that’s just the reality of our country.”
Santos said he wasn’t ruling out future political plans, but said he likely wouldn’t consider it within the”next decade.”
“I’m 37 years old. I can tell you this, not that I can see in the next decade,” he said. “I am all politicked out.”
Santos said his time behind bars made him want to focus on prison reform.
“America today has 250,000 federal inmates, approximately, and I think it would be much nicer to look at reducing that number. And if I can be a part of helping that, I would, I think that would be a great road to follow in the future,” Santos said.
