George Santos Sentenced to 87 Months

Sharing some posts from the archives

George Santos, the former Member of Congress and serial liar who pleaded guilty to fraud and was expelled from the House of Representatives, was sentenced yesterday to more than seven years in prison. Santos pleaded guilty last August to one count of wire fraud and one count of aggravated identity theft. As part of his plea bargain he also admitted to other crimes including campaign finance fraud, unemployment insurance fraud, and false statements to the House of Representatives.

George Santos in the House of Representatives (credit: AP/Alex Brandon)

Santos was a Republican Congressman from New York. He was first elected in 2022, when he “flipped” a district formerly held by the Democrats. Shortly after his election, reports began to emerge that he had repeatedly lied during his campaign about his personal and professional background, including where he went to school, where he had worked, and his ethnic heritage.

Those lies — or as Santos put it, “embellishing his resume” — led to a political scandal for the freshman Congressman but were not criminal, as I explained in this post at the time:

Shortly after Santos was elected, however, allegations of more serious, criminal conduct began to emerge. He ultimately was indicted in May 2023. Prosecutors later returned a superseding indictment charging Santos with a total of twenty-three felony counts for four different fraud schemes. On December 1st, 2023, the House voted to expel him from Congress. He pleaded guilty on August 19, 2024.

If you’d like a review of the allegations and charges in the indictment, I broke it all down here:

The wire fraud charge to which Santos pleaded guilty was based on his falsification of campaign finance reports filed with the Federal Election Commission. Working with his campaign treasurer, Santos listed fake donations from friends and family members and a personal loan to his campaign that he never made, in order to qualify for substantial additional funding from the National Republican Congressional Committee. The identity theft charge was based on Santos using credit card information from donors to his campaign to make unauthorized charges and then using the money for various personal expenses, including designer clothes and Botox injections.

Santos’s sentence of 87 months is right in line with what’s recommended by the federal sentencing guidelines and was requested by the prosecutors. He must also pay about $375,000 in restitution. The judge gave him until July 25 to surrender to prison and begin serving his term.

Santos is a Republican and a big Trump supporter who endorsed Trump’s “big lie” about the 2020 election being stolen. That would seem to make him a prime candidate for a presidential pardon, something Trump has readily handed out to other political allies and supporters. On the other hand, one of the victims of Santos’s fraud was the Republican party, so perhaps that cuts against him.

There apparently isn’t any sign of a pardon being in the works, at least not yet. But I will not be at all surprised if Trump pardons him before his sentence begins, falsely claiming that Santos was just another victim of president Biden’s supposedly “weaponized” Justice Department. Stay tuned.