OAN Staff Brooke Mallory
11:49 AM – Friday, May 9, 2025
Former New York GOP Representative George Santos, who pleaded guilty to wire fraud and identity theft and now faces more than seven years in prison, said this week that he will be asking President Donald Trump for mercy.
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Back in 2022, Santos became the first openly homosexual Republican to gain a House seat as a nonincumbent when he was elected to represent New York’s 3rd District.
“In pleading guilty, Santos of Queens, New York, admitted he filed fraudulent FEC reports, embezzled funds from campaign donors, charged credit cards without authorization, stole identities, obtained unemployment benefits through fraud, and lied in reports to the House of Representatives,” according to the Biden administration’s Internal Revenue Service (IRS), which made the statement on August 19, 2024.
In a Thursday episode of Piers Morgan’s YouTube show “Uncensored,” Santos stated that he would “take a commutation, clemency, whatever the president is willing to give me.”
In the tearful interview, Santos continued to plead for a pardon, commutation, or clemency, asserting that his sentence was politically-motivated and disproportionate for a first-time offender.
His attorney has also expressed intentions to formally seek executive clemency, contending that Trump would perceive the case as unjustly politicized—particularly given the efforts of other Democrats who previously targeted Trump via “lawfare” legal maneuvers.
“Seven years and three months in prison for a first-time offender over campaign matters just screams ‘over the top,’ and I would appreciate if the president would consider,” he added.
The former GOP lawmaker noted that before he is scheduled to go to prison in July, he is completing the necessary paperwork to formally request White House assistance — if possible.
Issues first arose for Santos when he was found to have told a number of lies about his past during his campaign — prompting his political reputation to collapse. Eventually, as ethics allegations against Santos grew, the House voted 311–114 to oust him from the chamber in 2023.
“I do believe this is an unfair judgment handed down to me,” he said on Thursday. “I think there was a lot of politicization over the process.”
Last month, President Trump issued a pardon to a former Republican state legislator from Tennessee who had admitted guilt in connection with campaign finance violations and was serving a 21-month sentence.
“May God bless America, despite the prosecutorial sins it committed against me, President Trump, and others the past four years,” former state Sen. Brian Kelsey said in a social media post.
During the conversation with Morgan, Santos also attacked Merrick Garland, the former U.S. attorney general during the Biden administration.
Trump has similarly condemned Garland while accusing him of utilizing the Department of Justice as a weapon against him and his conservative supporters.
While in his role, Garland was consistently accused of being lenient in overseeing the investigation into former first son Hunter Biden, with many on both sides arguing that the Justice Department delayed or downplayed potential charges. Critics of his also claim that Garland’s DOJ had pursued conservative figures and causes much more aggressively than liberal ones, pointing to disparities in responses to protests, like those at the Supreme Court Justices’ homes, versus actions against conservative protesters. Lastly, Garland issued a memo directing the FBI to address threats against school board members, which many have claimed was an overreach that specifically targeted conservative parents expressing concerns about inappropriate or far-left public school policies.
“Merrick Garland was by far the most disgraceful and disgraced political [attorney general] to ever serve in that capacity of the United States,” Santos asserted.
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