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The disgraced former congressman was sentenced to prison, years after his credentials and career began to unravel. Then President Trump commuted his sentence.
Published April 25, 2025Updated Oct. 17, 2025, 7:04 p.m. ET
The unraveling of George Santos began on Long Island nearly three years ago.
He seemed, at first, to be a fresh voice in the Republican Party, campaigning for Congress as a successful striver with Wall Street credentials and compelling personal connections to national tragedies.
He fashioned himself an enthusiastic supporter of Donald J. Trump and cut an unusual figure among Long Island Republicans as a young, gay son of Brazilian immigrants. But before he was even sworn in, much of his background was revealed to have been fabricated.
In the years that followed, a pugnacious Mr. Santos often seemed to bask in his notoriety — first insisting on his innocence before finally pleading guilty to a range of crimes last year.
In between, he became the sixth member in the history of Congress to be expelled from the House of Representatives.
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Nov. 8, 2022: Mr. Santos is elected
Mr. Santos, one of four Republicans to flip House seats in New York during the 2022 midterm elections, campaigned on his fealty to Mr. Trump’s movement.
Mr. Santos spoke glowingly of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol by the former president’s supporters, saying that he had attended himself and that Mr. Trump had been “at his full awesomeness that day.” Mr. Santos later called Jan. 6 a “dark day” and denied that he had been present.
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Dec. 19, 2022: His résumé is revealed to have been mostly fabricated
Before Mr. Santos was even sworn into office, reporting by The New York Times revealed that much of his résumé and many of his campaign-trail claims about his background had been outright lies.
A wave of revelations followed after more reporting by The Times and other outlets. Mr. Santos’s lies ranged from strangely trivial claims — that he had played volleyball in college and undergone two knee replacements — to fundamental falsehoods about his background — that he had personal ties to the Holocaust, Sept. 11 and the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, Fla.
Reporting also raised questions about his unusual campaign finance filings, including exorbitant air travel costs and dozens of expenses listed at $199.99 — one cent below the disclosure threshold.
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December 2022: Prosecutors start looking into Mr. Santos’s conduct
By Dec. 28, federal prosecutors in Brooklyn and the Nassau County district attorney had both reportedly begun to investigate whether Mr. Santos’s lies amounted to crimes.
March 2, 2023: A House committee announces an investigation into Mr. Santos
The House Ethics Committee said that it had begun an inquiry into Mr. Santos in response to requests by two New York Democrats.
After Mr. Santos had been in office for roughly two months, the 10-member bipartisan committee voted unanimously to investigate him. Calls for him to step aside grew across his district and from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.
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May 10, 2023: Federal prosecutors indict Mr. Santos on 13 charges …
In a 13-count indictment, federal prosecutors accused Mr. Santos of crimes including wire fraud, money laundering, stealing public funds and lying on federal disclosure forms. He pleaded not guilty.
Mr. Santos often seemed to relish the celebrity born from his many scandals. Outside the courthouse, he struck a bombastic, defiant tone, telling reporters that the charges against him were “a witch hunt.”
“I’m going to fight my battle, I’m going to deliver,” he added.
Oct. 10, 2023: … and then on 10 more charges
In a superseding indictment, prosecutors accused the disgraced congressman of 10 additional crimes, including conspiracy to commit offenses against the United States, wire fraud and aggravated identity theft.
Prosecutors said that Mr. Santos had engaged in brazen financial crimes including, on one occasion, using a donor’s credit card to transfer $11,000 into his own bank account.
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Nov. 16, 2023: The House Ethics Committee releases its findings
A bipartisan, four-member subcommittee released a scathing 56-page report that detailed “substantial evidence” that Mr. Santos had lied to voters and violated federal law.
Mr. Santos’s conduct “warrants public condemnation, is beneath the dignity of the office and has brought severe discredit upon the House,” the report said.
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Dec. 4, 2023: Mr. Santos finds a new platform — on Cameo
Three days after his expulsion from Congress, Mr. Santos began hawking personalized video messages on Cameo, joining other fallen public figures like Rudolph W. Giuliani and O.J. Simpson.
Mr. Santos crammed the short video missives with internet-speak and not-so-subtle allusions to his lies, scandals and crimes. They sold for $75 at first before rocketing to $500. The prices then cratered as the public began to lose interest in his bits.
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Aug. 19, 2024: Mr. Santos pleads guilty
A subdued Mr. Santos pleaded guilty to wire fraud and identity theft in federal court. With the plea, Mr. Santos agreed to pay nearly $374,000 in restitution and serve at least two years in prison.
“I allowed my ambition to cloud my judgment,” he said, “leading me to make decisions that were unethical and — guilty.”
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April 25, 2025: Mr. Santos is sentenced to more than 7 years in prison
Prosecutors had asked for Mr. Santos to be sentenced to 87 months, arguing that such a punishment would be proportionate to the “breadth, scope and predatory nature” of his crimes. Lawyers for Mr. Santos had asked for the minimum sentence of two years.
Judge Joanna Seybert sided with the prosecutors, giving Mr. Santos until late July to surrender.
“Mr. Santos, words have consequences,” the judge said. “You got elected with your words, most of which were lies.”
Oct. 17, 2025: President Trump commutes his sentence
In a social media post announcing his decision to commute Mr. Santos’s sentence, Mr. Trump called him “somewhat of a ‘rogue’” but said that he believed that the former congressman’s sentence was excessive, given the nature of his crime.
The president also suggested he had been moved by Mr. Santos’s accounts of being in solitary confinement, which he had published in a local Long Island newspaper.
“George has been in solitary confinement for long stretches of time and, by all accounts, has been horribly mistreated,” Mr. Trump wrote. “Therefore, I just signed a Commutation, releasing George Santos from prison, IMMEDIATELY. Good luck George, have a great life!”
