(CNN) — Disgraced former Rep. George Santos, fresh off his release from prison after President Donald Trump commuted his sentence on Friday night, dismissed his critics, telling CNN he’s focused on the future after eating a “very large slice of humble pie” during his time behind bars.
Santos, who had been serving a seven-year term for the fraud charges that got him ousted from Congress, said he had just been released from solitary confinement when his fellow inmates saw news of the commutation on television and told him.
“I had no expectations,” the New York Republican told CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union” on Sunday.
Some Republicans from New York weren’t happy with the president’s decision. Rep. Nick LaLota posted on social media that Santos “didn’t merely lie — he stole millions, defrauded an election, and his crimes (for which he pled guilty) warrant more than a three-month sentence.”
LaLota added that Santos should “devote the rest of his life to demonstrating remorse and making restitution to those he wronged.”
Rep. Andrew Garbarino, in a statement to the Washington Times, said Santos “has shown no remorse. The less than three months that he spent in prison is not justice.”
Santos said on Sunday his former colleagues are “entitled to their opinion.”
“People are going to hate me. It doesn’t matter whoever gets clemency in the future, whoever that person might be. I’m pretty confident that if President Trump had pardoned Jesus Christ off of the cross, he would have had critics. So that’s just the reality of our country.”
He claimed he had received a “a seven-year disproportionate sentence that is anything but political if you talk to anybody who really looks at these kinds of cases.”
Santos is no longer required to pay any further fines, restitution, probation or other conditions, according to a copy of his clemency grant which was posted on social media by U.S. Pardon Attorney Ed Martin.
Asked whether he will pay his donors back, Santos said Sunday he will “do my best to do whatever the law requires of me.”
“The investment was made to win a race. I won that race,” Santos said. “There was no fraud there.”
He said he is now “going to look to the future,” apologizing to the American people and people in his former district, saying he was in a “chaotic ball of flames” at the time he committed his crimes.
Santos said his experience in prison, especially in solitary confinement, has inspired him to focus on helping with prison reform efforts, something he had spoken with the president about.
“It’s actually creating recidivism because it’s not doing what it’s supposed to do,” Santos said of the prison system. “I told this to the president, that I’d love to be involved with prison reform, and not in a partisan way.”
Santos said he did not see himself returning to politics in the next 10 years.
“I’m 37 years old. I can tell you this, not that I can see if in the next decade. … I’m all politicked out,” he said.
The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2025 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
