‘I made some pretty scumbag choices’: George Santos on sinning, Trump and his 41 days in prison
George Santos, the former Republican congressman who served just 41 days of a seven-year sentence before Trump commuted it, admits he made "scumbag choices" in defrauding campaign donors.
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In brief:
- George Santos was released from prison after serving 41 days of a seven-year sentence for wire fraud and identity theft after President Trump commuted his sentence in response to an open letter asking for "fairness."
- Speaking to Emily Maitlis and Jon Sopel on The News Agents, Santos admits making "scumbag choices" by stealing campaign funds from ordinary donors, though he's only "looking into" repaying victims despite no longer being legally obligated to do so.
- Rather than returning to politics, Santos says he wants to advocate for prison reform and teach young people to make better choices.
What’s the story?
George Santos - the former Republican congressman who was released from prison this month after serving only 41 days of his seven year sentence - has admitted he “made some pretty scumbag choices”.
Santos’s jail time was cut short when President Trump commuted his sentence, after seeing an open letter he wrote to the President.
In the letter, Santos wrote; “I am not asking for sympathy. I am asking for fairness” – a “genius” bit of PR, according to Jon Sopel.
The plea worked - with Trump posting on social media that Santos has been “horribly mistreated”.
“Good luck George, have a great life!" the President wrote, as he freed the convicted felon.
Santos found out that he was being released early via a TV from prison.
“I called home, and my husband had spoken to the President already as he called to notify him, and he was absolutely in tears,” Santos recalls.
The 37-year-old was convicted in April 2025 for committing wire fraud and aggravated identity theft.
In laundering campaign funds to pay for his personal expenses, he stole money from “ordinary people who were just trying to donate - not rich powerful men,” Emily points out.
That, she says, “makes him a scumbag” - and Santos is inclined to agree.
“You can call me a scumbag, politically,” Santos says.
“I made some pretty scumbag choices.”
Is Donald Trump acting as a king?
Santos’s release came as thousands of people took to the streets across America to protest against Donald Trump.
Dubbed ‘No Kings’, the protest’s name signifies that the US does not - and should not - have an absolute ruler.
Some might say that commuting Santos’s sentence is exactly the kind of authoritarian behaviour that protestors are campaigning against - but not Santos.
“There is no king in the United States. President Donald Trump is not acting like a king,” he says.
He compares Trump’s actions to that of President Joe Biden, who pardoned his entire family before he left office - and says that Biden did worse when he “opened the borders of the United States to approximately 20 million people, ignored the rule of law and completely created decay and financial decay in our economy”.
“I don't recall hearing anybody say President Biden was a king when he was dishing out all the pardons he did to his family. And I would like to know isn't, is that not king like behaviour?”
While Emily and Jon did criticise Biden’s move to pardon his family - they recognise it’s also possible he did ahead of handing power to Trump, amid concerns they would be targeted under his second term in office.
Will Santos repay the money?
When Santos was convicted, as part of the sentence he was supposed to pay restitution in the hundreds of thousands of pounds to his victims.
With the slate now wiped clean, he is no longer obligated to do so, but says he’s “looking into it” anyway, because he wants a “fresh start”.
“I am not obligated to but I am morally – and should be morally – compelled to do so, and I have the desire to do so, because if I don't, it will follow me forever,” Santos says.
“The alternative would be to call the people who would have a claim - and I'm not sure that they want to hear from me, if we're being completely honest.”
What’s next for George Santos?
Santos is charismatic and smart, someone Emily says “could have been a really incredibly successful politician” had he chosen another path, so why did he choose one of fraud and criminality?
“I've asked and pondered myself that question, and I always come to the conclusion I was inundated with an ambition, and ambition generates greed, and greed generates a very toxic mental state for a person,” Santos says.
Although a staunch Republican - and now, seemingly a friend of Trump’s - Santos says his goal now is not to get into government.
Instead, it’s to advocate for prison reform, and teach the youth to “make better choices”.
“I have sinned greatly. I have had committed terrible transgressions in my life that I am going to have to live with for the rest of my life.
“But I want to take all of that in the learnings and the teachings and do something good with it. I want people to see that good can come out of horrible situations.”