Santos Thanks Trump During TV Appearances After His Release From Prison

Two days after his release from federal prison, George Santos, the disgraced former Republican congressman from New York, appeared on TV to thank President Trump for commuting his 87-month sentence after just 84 days and claimed that he was devoting his future to prison reform.

He also used his media appearances on CNN’s “State of the Union” and on Fox News’s “Fox & Friends Weekend” to slap back at those who have condemned his release and to attack the warden of Federal Correctional Institution Fairton in New Jersey, where he had been incarcerated.

And he chatted with Rachel Campos-Duffy of “Fox & Friends Weekend” about the benefits of being out of prison, including that he is free to get Botox injections.

Mr. Santos was expelled from Congress in 2023. He pleaded guilty in April to wire fraud and identity theft in federal court in the Eastern District of New York.

He admitted to lying to Congress, stealing money from campaign donors and fraudulently collecting unemployment benefits. A congressional ethics investigation found that Mr. Santos had improperly spent campaign funds on Botox, designer fashion, cosmetics and OnlyFans purchases.

Citing former President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s pardon of members of his family — including his son Hunter Biden — Mr. Santos, 37, told CNN’s Dana Bash on Sunday that he was unbothered by detractors who said he should have served more of his sentence.

“Pardon me if I’m not paying too much attention to the pearl clutching of the outrage of my critics,” he said.

He also railed against the prison warden, whom he referred to as “Warden Kelly,” saying on CNN that she was “a retaliatory warden” who placed him in “segregated isolation after 41 days” for “no valid reason.” He added during the Fox interview, “She’s a horrible human being” who “runs a horrible institution.”

A spokesman for the warden was not available, according to a person who answered the phone at the New Jersey prison on Sunday. An automatic email response from the federal Bureau of Prisons said no one was available as a result of a “lapse in appropriations.”

During his time in prison, Mr. Santos wrote in columns for The South Shore Press on Long Island that he had been moved into the institution’s “special housing unit” after his lawyer reported to prison officials that he had received a death threat against his client.

Mr. Santos described feeling isolated. “I sometimes feel the life leaving my body, a slow leaking of hope,” he wrote, adding: “Those who permitted, enabled or ignored this neglect will be held accountable. Call it justice, oversight, a storm of accountability — it will come."

In his televised appearances this weekend, Mr. Santos looked rested and in good spirits, wearing a shiny blue sport coat over a black turtleneck as he described the latest turn in his headline-grabbing, head-turning political story.

He said that on Thursday, just after he was released from “S.H.U.” — shorthand for the special housing unit — he went to Mass and met with a priest for “confession, for a lengthy period.” The next day, he said, he learned of the commutation of his sentence.

“Other inmates saw” the news on television, he said, “and called me over to see it.” He said he then called relatives who confirmed that he would soon be released. It was a “surprise,” he said.

Mr. Santos was elected to Congress in 2022. Weeks later, The New York Times reported that he had manufactured key details on his campaign biography, including about his education, employment and religion.

He said on Sunday that he would like to use his “second chance” to help others. “I told this to the president,” he said, “that I’d love to be involved with prison reform, and not in a partisan way — in a real human way.” He called prison “the great equalizer” and said he had been incarcerated alongside “a billionaire” as well as “people who were homeless.”

Mr. Santos also said on Fox that he had told Mr. Trump that he believes Samuel Miele, one of his former campaign staff members, who pleaded guilty to wire fraud and was sentenced to a year and a day in prison, is a victim of “arbitrary sentencing.” He told Ms. Bash on CNN that Mr. Miele, who is also incarcerated at Fairton, “should have a commutation afforded to him.”

Mr. Santos did not specify how he might work for changes in the prison system. He told Fox that running for Congress again is “definitely not something I want to do at the immediate moment” but that “I’m not ruling it out.”