Trump Commutes Sentence of Former Rep. George Santos
A judge sentenced Santos to seven years after he pled guilty to federal wire fraud and aggravated identity theft.
President Donald Trump commuted the seven-year sentence of former Rep. George Santos.
He wrote on Truth Social:
George Santos was somewhat of a “rogue,” but there are many rogues throughout our Country that aren’t forced to serve seven years in prison. I started to think about George when the subject of Democrat Senator Richard “Da Nang Dick” Blumenthal came up again. As everyone remembers, “Da Nang” stated for almost twenty years that he was a proud Vietnam Veteran, having endured the worst of the War, watching the Wounded and Dead as he raced up the hills and down the valleys, blood streaming from his face. He was “a Great Hero,” he would leak to any and all who would listen — And then it happened! He was a COMPLETE AND TOTAL FRAUD. He never went to Vietnam, he never saw Vietnam, he never experienced the Battles there, or anywhere else. His War Hero status, and even minimal service in our Military, was totally and completely MADE UP. This is far worse than what George Santos did, and at least Santos had the Courage, Conviction, and Intelligence to ALWAYS VOTE REPUBLICAN! George has been in solitary confinement for long stretches of time and, by all accounts, has been horribly mistreated. Therefore, I just signed a Commutation, releasing George Santos from prison, IMMEDIATELY. Good luck George, have a great life!
U.S. President Donald J. Trump announces that he has commuted the sentence of Former Republican Rep. George Santos, who was sentenced to eighty-seven months in federal prison back in April 2025, for charges of wire fraud and aggravated identity theft related to hundreds of… pic.twitter.com/MwPnWbjv8P
— OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) October 17, 2025
In April, U.S. District Court Judge Joanna Seybert sentenced Santos to seven years and three months after he pleaded guilty to federal wire fraud and aggravated identity theft.
According to The New York Post, Santos admitted “he defrauded donors and used the names of dozens of people, including family and friends, to falsely inflate his number of contributors.”
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Comments
He needed to serve at least 2 years
With restitution
7 years?
You can try to assassinate a sitting SC justice and only get .8
Trans you know, got to support the emotionally unstable trans
What a horrible judge
I agree
President Trump again didn’t wait to act when seeing injustice like most would. How refreshing. A profile in courage and a real President for a change.
You forgot Santos’ previous gig as a drag queen.
Was he sentenced for that, too?
I should think they would have granted him a “good behavior” reduction for that.
Given the sentences (or lack thereof) that Dems are handing down these days to leftist activists, this seems right to say we will look after our side.
Didn’t pardon just commuted. This was also a good call.
He’s not on our side. He may be on your side in which case the question is “What side are you on?”
I am not a fan of Santos and don’t want a fraud as a Republican.
But if he voted in lock step with what Trump wanted on legislation, then at least he was on my side while in the house.
And as much of a fraud as he was, all the so called good republicans like Paul Ryan were just as big a fraud in the worst possible way – they defrauded voters when they undermined Trump in his first term.
And these RINOs are not on my side.
I don’t want a yes man. I want someone who will call a spade a spade when Trump does something stupid and anti-conservative such as pardoning corrupt politicians.
Whether other politicians are bad or corrupt is irrelevant.
Stolen valor. His lie about serving in ‘Nam is stolen valor. Too many actually served there, many made it home, some only in a box; all were damaged. He degraded the service of those who went. Santos should have served every minute of that 7 years… for that alone.
I wish Trump would stop doing this shit and stick to governing. I grow tired of these unforced errors.
Santos didn’t claim valor it was the idiot Democrat Senator Richard “Da Nang Dick” Blumenthal
But I too wish President Trump would have thought this thru , he definitely was guilty but was way overcharged, as most Republicans are
Service where there are people shooting at you, and your comrades are getting wounded and killed is indeed Valor. We were born with a military obligation: to serve when called, in the manner and place to be determined. You don’t lie and say you did when you did not.
I agree he just commented like it was Santos who had stolen valor and it wasnt
Blumenthal did serve when called, in the manner and place that his superiors determined. That just wasn’t Vietnam.
Trump’s claim that “His War Hero status, and even minimal service in our Military, was totally and completely MADE UP” is a lie. Blumenthal never claimed to be a war hero, and his “minimal service in our military” was not made up.
Also Blumenthal never claimed to have “endured the worst of the War, watching the Wounded and Dead as he raced up the hills and down the valleys, blood streaming from his face.” Trump made that up.
Blumenthal truthfully said he was a “Vietnam era veteran”, i.e. he served while the Vietnam war was happening. He didn’t serve in that war. On many occasions he openly said he had not served in Vietnam; so it’s not as if he was trying to hide it. But there were occasions where he did say he served “in Vietnam”, and that was a lie. His excuse that he meant to say “while Vietnam was happening” is not plausible.
So yes, he lied, but it was nothing like the lie Trump attributed to him.
Made Up? No, rather a cry of the heart that opened the floodgates of this much maligned man’s literary license, in aid of promoting a higher truth.
George W Bush was also a Vietnam era veteran; but he never claimed to have served in Vietnam.
Then there was also former Democrat senator Tom Harkin, who several times claimed to have flown combat air patrols in Vietnam. The truth seems to be that he did fly some combat air patrols during that era, but not in Vietnam, and he never saw actual combat. On the few occasions he actually did fly to Vietnam he was not in a combat role at all, by any description.
Speaking as someone who lived during some of the bloodiest, fiercest battles of the Vietnam War, all I can say is that I am thankful to have survived and be alive today.
I recommend Rafael Sabatini’s “The Gates of Doom” for a description of how the most perfect truth can conduce to the most execrable lie.
Stop
“The newspaper has one incontrovertible example of Blumenthal making reference to “the days that I served in Vietnam” ”
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/did-richard-blumenthal-lie-about-serving-in-vietnam/
vs.
” Santos admitted “he defrauded donors and used the names of dozens of people, including family and friends, to falsely inflate his number of contributors.”
Oh no, inflating numbers or serving in Viet Nam.
Now defend Walz.
Exactly. You, I, Blumenthal, Trump, and Warren all lived during those bloody and fierce battles. And we have all survived to this day, and are thankful for it.
In exactly the same way, Trump was alive during the Holocaust, and is surely thankful to have survived and be alive today.
rbj1, yes, exactly as I wrote, Blumenthal did occasionally say he served in Vietnam, though on other occasions he clearly said he didn’t, so he wasn’t trying to cover anything up. Which is not even close to the vicious, wicked lies that Trump told about him.
But neither Blumenthal’s nor Trump’s lies are criminal. The first amendment protects everyone’s right to tell lies on matters of public interest, such as one’s military record or lack thereof. However lying to induce people to give you money is a completely different thing. It’s fraud, and it’s just as much a crime as bank robbery or burglary. It’s no different from what Madoff did, except in scale. And that is what Santos was convicted of.
So yes, inflating your donor lists is much much worse than falsely claiming, once in a while, to have performed ones military service in one country rather than another.
From what? Tell a vicious lie about him and I’ll absolutely defend him from it, as would any decent person.
But you are not a decent person. You are one who tailors his views according to whose ox is gored, and who can’t even understand the concept of not doing so.
Don’t you think extended solitary confinement is cruel and unusual punishment?
When our prison system is singling out people for special mistreatment that is actually why the president/governor/governor plus boards etc have the power to commute sentences.
“you are not a decent person.”
You have no clue. But you ALWAYS act and speak as if you do. Which makes it easy to bust your chops. Quite decent.
Danny, we’re not talking about Santos, but about Trump’s vicious lies against Blumenthal, which are much worse than Blumenthal’s own indisputable lies.
Trump’s an idiot. Blumenthal was an established liar, and it was easy to attack him for it, and to tar all Democrats with his brush. Rather than do that, Trump decided to gild the lily by telling outright awful defamatory lies that far outweigh Blumenthal’s own lies, and turn him from a villain into a victim. Now Democrats, rather than having to be ashamed of Blumenthal, can champion him and hold him up as a victim of Trump’s lies.
Your factual confusion is noted above “amateur.” I’ll add that it’s not an “unforced error.” He is doing his duty as President. With courage and conviction. Most gutless modern presidents would let someone suffer injustice and wait until the day before leaving office to do something. President Trump has the guts and integrity to act now.
“‘Da Nang Dick’ Blumenthal,” haha that’s pretty doggone funny.
He should have stayed in there at least another year
The typical sentence for stolen valor is about one year (according to my AI assisted search), which suggests that this commutation is not unreasonable. Also, Santos was kept in solitary confinement due to death threats, so this was not the typical easy time that most politicians get.
There is so much wrong with this comment.
First of all SANTOS DID NOT “STEAL” ANY VALOR. I don’t know where you got that idea. He never claimed to have served in the US armed forces in any capacity.
Second, “stealing valor”, i.e. lying about ones military service is NOT A CRIME. It is in fact constitutionally protected speech, and so can’t be a crime. Therefore there is no such thing as a “typical sentence” for it.
The only time lying about one’s service is a crime is when the lie is used to defraud people out of money; then the crime is properly categorized as fraud, not as “stolen valor”.
But none of this has anything at all to do with Santos, who was in prison for defrauding hundreds of donors. Nothing to do with the military at all.
The Stolen Valor Act of 2013, which was signed into law, makes it a crime to “fraudulently claim military honors or service” for personal gain.
For personal gain. Those are the key words, without which the act would be unconstitutional, as its predecessor was.
Exactly as I said, lying about ones service in order to defraud people of money is a crime, just like any other lie told to defraud people of money. The crime is the fraud, not the lie itself, let alone the topic about which it was told.
Lies in general, though, whether about military service or anything else, when not part of a financial fraud scheme, are protected speech.
You are right– I was under the mistaken impression that Santos claimed military service. False claims of military valor are a source of anger for veterans who have friends that were killed or wounded.
Thank you for bringing that to my attention in such a kind way.
Yeah but did Santos really defraud donors? I mean he lied his ass off about qualifications but once elected he voted exactly the way he told them he would if he got in office. So they paid to get a guy to vote a certain way and they got it, where is the fraud? I guess the question is are donors paying for your qualifications or for the way you will vote.
Yes, he did defraud his donors, by inventing donors that didn’t exist, in order to inflate his donor lists and thus induce actual donors to give him money they would never have given without it. That, and only that, was the crime he was convicted of. Outright fraud, just like Madoff, though on a smaller scale.
Is Trump tacitly approving of Liz Warren by failing to mention her?
Claiming to be an Indian is not stolen Valor.
Not if you look like you’re old enough to have been a Little Big Horn……………………
Which has nothing to do with the topic. In any case, Trump’s lies about Blumenthal are much much worse than Blumenthal’s own lies.
Trump can’t pardon her, she hasn’t been imprisoned yet.
Huh? If she’d committed a federal crime (which as far as I know she hasn’t) Trump could pardon her (though why would he want to?). But where is this coming from? Who suggested anything about pardoning her? Hunt merely asked, tongue in cheek, whether he approved of her.
I don’t like the decision. It’s way too early to do it. Should have left that guy in prison for at least 20-25% of his sentence.
FWIW Santos did NOT engage in stolen Valor.
If Trump is right that he was getting cruel and unusual punishment it is absolutely justified.
We are the only western country that has a prison system that can put people in solitary confinement (torture) for extended periods without a reason and that gives prisons unlimited power to put people in solitary confinement.
Torture is barred by the constitution and I think Trump is trustworthy enough to believe him when he says Santos was being tortured.
The power to commute is there for a reason.
When a huckster sells you something that turns out to be a fake, whose fault is it? Santos sold his constituents a load of lies and without them verifying any of them, voted for him. Who’s to blame? I don’t see his “Crime” as a punishible offense except striping him of his title.
He wasn’t convicted of lying to his voters. That’s not a crime, and it can’t be made a crime. The first amendment protects pretty much anything a candidate tells voters.
He was convicted of defrauding donors, by telling them outright lies to induce them to give him money. He padded his donor list with fake donors, for the purpose of inducing actual suckers to join their ranks and give him actual money. That’s fraud, whether it’s part of a political campaign or not.
Absolutely EXCELLENT decision.
I support this, and many more like it. NOW!!!
Why?
Because Santos is a saint? No.
Because Santos isn’t a criminal? No.
Because Democrats will stand side-by-side the worst criminals in society and protect them, all with the media’s support and help.
Democrats can get away with every crime known to man and still not see justice. That’s why.
But so-called conservatives will gladly serve up someone on the right for summary execution at dawn. But will pearl clutch when a democrat commits a crime and gets away with it. “I’m gonna write a seriously stern letter for this injustice!!!!!”
The right will gladly allow the left to hang them as long as it’s a clean rope.
“Gotta play by the rules doncha know!”
“We can’t get down in the mud for this fight, doncha know!”
“Gotta have purity, doncha know!”
As far as I am concerned, no person in the right should be convicted of anything until the left is held to the same standard.
Few of you will, because PURITY!!!!!!!
Becoming Democrats/trying to out-Democrat the Democrats is a losing strategy. I don’t like losing.
I agree 100%. And you already have one pearl-clutching response.
I can only assume you’re referring to a different comment that I missed. I am not in the least bit concerned about corrupt politicians being sent to prison and serving out their full sentences. In fact I’d like to see more of it — it would be awesome to see “Lock her up!” finally happen.
Nope. I’m referring to you and your bullshit “principles”.
Yes, we already know you have no principles at all. So what makes you different from any Democrat?
You’ve managed to confuse me again by asserting that “I don’t like to lose” is a “bullshit principle”. Maybe you just don’t understand the difference between principle and strategy?
Why is everyone forgetting that Trump explained his reasoning was cruel and unusual punishment Santos got from the prison?
Have you all forgotten how outraged you got over knowing that the prison system put Jan 6th people in solitary permanently?
I happen to think it was torture then to do it to them, and it is torture when the prison system does it to Santos.
Then why doesn’t he do the same for all prisoners in the Special Housing Unit? Why doesn’t he just order the Bureau of Prisons to stop putting people there?
We have only Trump’s word that Santos has even been there, and we certainly don’t know why. So how can we judge whether it was for a good reason?
Outhouse only gives communists the benefit of the doubt.
Go drown yourself in an outhouse. Or in an inhouse, I don’t care, just do it.