In the hours after President Trump’s announcement that he had commuted the prison sentence of George Santos, the disgraced former Republican congressman, New York politicians and some voters greeted the news with a mix of anger and frustration.
“George Santos is a convicted con artist,” Representative Nicole Malliotakis, a New York Republican, said in a statement on Saturday. “That will forever be his legacy, and I disagree with the commutation.”
Robert Zimmerman, a Democrat who lost to Mr. 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.
Mr. 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 on Friday night, after Mr. 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.
Mr. Santos’s 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 congressman 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 résumé and background.
He was elected to the House. But as more revelations about Mr. Santos’s 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 congressmen, called on Mr. Santos to resign, breaking sharply with Republican congressional leaders, who declined to remove him.
Mr. 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 Mr. Santos’s 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, the founder of Concerned Citizens of NY-03, a left-leaning group that was created explicitly to advocate for Mr. Santos’s 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,” Mr. Sittenreich on Saturday. “Now we’re in a situation where if you’re with President Trump and you commit real crimes, you get off scot-free.”
Representative Nick LaLota, a Republican from Long Island who was among the lawmakers leading calls for Mr. Santos’s removal in 2023, said in a post on social media that the former congressman’s crimes warranted more than the three-month term he had served.
“George Santos didn’t merely lie — he stole millions, defrauded an election,” Mr. 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 Mr. Santos’s 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 Mr. 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, Senator Adam Schiff and Anthony Fauci.”
Joseph G. Cairo, the chairman of the Nassau County Republican Committee who had previously called for Mr. Santos’s 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 Representative Anthony D’Esposito, a Republican who helped lead the effort to oust Mr. 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 Mr. Santos’s former district.
On Saturday, many New Yorkers said they hoped more Republicans would take a firmer stand against Mr. Santos’s release.
“I think there will be widespread outrage,” Kim Keiserman, a Democrat from Port Washington, said. “I just don’t know if that outrage will be bipartisan.”
Maia Coleman is a reporter for The Times covering the New York Police Department and criminal justice in the New York area.
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