Santos’ release frustrates his former colleagues and constituents

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) during the third day of the speakership vote at Capitol Hill in Washington, on January 5, 2023. It took months of social media pleas, weekly dispatches in a small newspaper, handwritten letters from solitary confinement, entreaties from Republican allies and 84 days of prison time. But Santos’s request was finally granted. (Haiyun Jiang/The New York Times)

By MAIA COLEMAN

In the hours after President Donald Trump’s announcement that he had commuted the prison sentence of George Santos, the disgraced former Republican member of Congress, New York politicians and some voters greeted the news with a mix of anger and frustration.

“George Santos is a convicted con artist,” Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, R-N.Y., said in a statement Saturday. “That will forever be his legacy, and I disagree with the commutation.”

Robert Zimmerman, a Democrat who lost to Santos in a 2022 congressional race, said in a post on social media that “this decision demonstrates the lawlessness of the Trump administration.”

“Donald Trump is trying to put his political enemies in jail while he frees George Santos for the unconscionable crimes he committed,” he added.

Santos, 37, had been serving a seven-year sentence at a federal prison in New Jersey after pleading guilty to wire fraud and aggravated identity theft. He was released Friday night, after Trump announced in a social media post that he had cut the sentence short, citing their shared politics and his belief that the sentence had been excessive.

Santos’ release, which came amid a wave of clemency that the president has granted to his political allies and other right-wing figures, was the latest chapter in an improbable political career.

The former lawmaker from Long Island, once seen as a fresh face in Republican politics, suffered a swift fall from grace after reporting from The New York Times and other outlets exposed that he had fabricated much of his resume and background.

He was elected to the House. But as more revelations about Santos’ lies on the campaign trail came to light, his Republican colleagues in New York grew increasingly uneasy. In January 2023, dozens of the state’s Republican officials, including four newly elected members of Congress, called on Santos to resign, breaking with Republican congressional leaders, who declined to remove him.

Santos was indicted in 2023 on charges that included wire fraud and money laundering. That winter, he became the sixth sitting member of the House to be expelled and the first to be removed without being convicted of a federal crime or supporting the Confederacy.

Some of Santos’ former Democratic constituents on Long Island called the commutation a slap in the face.

“The bottom line is that the Republican Party has really disrespected this district for years now and continues to,” said Jody Kass Finkel of Great Neck, founder of Concerned Citizens of NY-03, a left-leaning group that was created explicitly to advocate for Santos’ removal from Congress. The “silver lining is that we’re now organized, and we are not sitting down taking it,” she said.

Marc Sittenreich, who is from Port Washington and is affiliated with Concerned Citizens, said the commutation was an attack on the rule of law.

“We feel like in many ways he got his just deserts,” Sittenreich said Saturday. “Now we’re in a situation where if you’re with President Trump and you commit real crimes, you get off scot-free.”

Richard Osthoff, who had tangled with Santos in 2016, said he found the former lawmaker’s release “disgusting and sickening.”

Osthoff, a veteran living in New Jersey, was connected to Santos after Santos set up a GoFundMe page to help raise money for a surgery that Osthoff’s dog required. But Osthoff said he never received those funds, and his dog eventually died. Santos denied any wrongdoing.

Osthoff said he felt that any justice that had been won when Santos went to prison had been undone by the commutation.

“I feel like I got personally stabbed in the gut by the president of the United States,” he said. “I don’t think he even realizes what George did, what he was guilty of.”

In a post on social media, Rep. Nick LaLota, a Republican from Long Island who was among the lawmakers leading calls for Santos’ removal in 2023, said that the former lawmaker’s crimes warranted more than the three-month term he had served.

“George Santos didn’t merely lie — he stole millions, defrauded an election,” LaLota wrote. “He should devote the rest of his life to demonstrating remorse and making restitution to those he wronged.”

But some Republican critics of Santos’ stopped short of criticizing the president.

“I am proud that I was an early voice calling for Santos to resign from the House recognizing that his behavior was totally unacceptable,” Bruce Blakeman, the Nassau County executive who has allied himself with Trump, said in a statement. “That said, critics of the commutation are the same ones who silently stood by while President Biden pardoned his son Hunter, Sen. Adam Schiff and Anthony Fauci.”

Joseph Cairo, the chair of the Nassau County Republican Committee who had previously called for Santos’ resignation and said that he had “disgraced” the House of Representatives, on Saturday issued a muted statement.

The committee was “united in calling for the expulsion of George Santos from the House of Representatives based on our shared belief that integrity, honesty and accountability are nonnegotiable standards for anyone seeking to serve the public,” the statement said. “Our focus remains on justifying the public’s confidence in government and ensuring that the Republican Party continues to stand for ethical leadership, transparency and service to the people.”

Former Rep. Anthony D’Esposito, a Republican who helped lead the effort to oust Santos and later lost his congressional seat, did not immediately respond to a request for comment, nor did Thomas Suozzi, the Democrat who now represents Santos’ former district.

On Saturday, many New Yorkers said they hoped more Republicans would take a firmer stand against Santos’ release.

“I think there will be widespread outrage,” said Kim Keiserman, a Democrat from Port Washington. “I just don’t know if that outrage will be bipartisan.”