Santos readily admitted he was no stranger to spewing nonsense, and pointed to his prison stint as proof he was well aware of his checkered past.
“I’m the first one to say I’ve said a lot of b——- in my life, and I’m very self-aware of that,” he confessed, before bluntly adding: “Hey, I went to prison, Bill. Let’s just put it that way.”
Santos made history in 2022 as the first openly g-y Republican elected to Congress, defeating Democrat Robert Zimmerman in the battle for New York’s 3rd Congressional District.
But Santos’ time in Congress would prove incredibly short-lived. Just four months after being sworn in, the scandal-plagued lawmaker was hit with a bombshell 13-count federal indictment in May 2023, charging him with wire fraud, money laundering, theft of public funds, and making false statements to the House of Representatives.
Santos landed behind bars after pleading guilty to wire fraud and aggravated identity theft, admitting to a sprawling web of financial schemes that included ripping off campaign donors, making unauthorized charges on their credit cards, stealing identities, and fraudulently collecting unemployment benefits. He was sentenced to 87 months in federal prison in April 2025.
Trump commuted his sentence in October of that year, writing in a Truth Social post, “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,” adding he had “just signed a Commutation, releasing George Santos from prison, IMMEDIATELY.”