President Donald Trump announced on Truth Social that he had “just signed a commutation, releasing George Santos from prison IMMEDIATELY,” wishing the former lawmaker “good luck and a great life.”
Santos’s attorney Joseph Murray confirmed that his client had left Fairton Federal Correctional Institution and was “on his way home.”
A fall from politics to prison
George Santos’s brief but notorious political career unraveled after he admitted to a sweeping fraud scheme that included deceiving donors and stealing the identities of 11 people — among them members of his own family — to funnel money into his congressional campaign.
He pleaded guilty last year to wire-fraud and aggravated-identity-theft charges and, in April 2025, received an 87-month federal sentence that ultimately cost him his seat in Congress.
Pressure from Republican allies
Trump’s decision came after weeks of lobbying from his staunch Republican allies, notably Marjorie Taylor Greene, who denounced Santos’s conviction as “a grave injustice” and appealed directly to the Justice Department for clemency.
Greene hailed the president’s action, calling Santos’s solitary confinement “torture” and insisting that he had been “unfairly treated.”
‘He lied, but he was for Trump’
Asked earlier this year whether he would consider clemency, Trump told Newsmax, “He lied like hell … but he was 100 percent for Trump.”
In his latest post, Trump compared Santos’s offenses to Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal’s misstatements about serving in Vietnam, claiming that what Blumenthal did “was far worse — at least Santos had the courage and conviction to always vote Republican.”
Victims react with anger
One of Santos’s victims, disabled Navy veteran Richard Osthoff, condemned the president’s move, telling the Daily Mail it felt like “a punch in the gut.”
Osthoff accused Santos of pocketing donations raised for his dying service dog and said, “The president essentially spat on a veteran yet again. Santos should never have been considered for this.”
Political fallout over loyalty-driven clemency
The commutation reignited debate over Trump’s pattern of granting clemency to political loyalists.
According to White House insiders, the president was swayed by a letter Santos wrote from prison appealing for “a second chance to rebuild.”
Critics, however, argue the move rewards corruption and undermines accountability.
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