George Santos to seek pardon from Trump, attorney says

Ex-Long Island Rep. George Santos plans to seek a pardon from President Donald Trump after he was sentenced last week to more than 7 years in prison for committing a series of frauds as he ran for Congress, including ripping off his own supporters, his attorney told Newsday Tuesday.

“I personally want to make sure this gets to President Trump,” Santos’ lead attorney Joseph W. Murray told Newsday. “I’m confident that if I share what took place with President Trump, or the White House, that they will agree with me, that this was very political.”

The White House did not respond to a message seeking comment.

John J. Durham, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said Santos admitted his guilt.

“The record in this case — including the Court’s findings, the indictment, George Santos’s admissions during his guilty plea, the memoranda and statements made in connection with his sentencing — speaks for itself,” Durham said in a written statement.

Murray said Santos, a Republican who served just 11 months in Congress before he was expelled by his fellow members over a damning House Ethics Committee report that found “substantial evidence” he had violated federal laws, was initially indicted in May 2023 by what Murray described as a partisan U.S. Department of Justice under former President Joe Biden, a Democrat.

Santos eventually faced 23 charges connected to five separate schemes. He pleaded guilty to wire fraud and aggravated identity theft in August 2024. Prosecutors have said Santos inflated the amount of his campaign fundraising in order to qualify for federal matching funds, stole money from his campaign contributors by fraudulently charging their credit cards, received more than $24,000 in unemployment benefits from New York State while he had a job and made false statements on his financial disclosure forms to Congress.

“We are definitely going to apply for a pardon or clemency,” Murray said Tuesday. “I’ve never done it; I’m researching it now. I believe both the prosecution and the sentencing was because a gay Republican [Santos] won a congressional seat in a Biden plus 10 district.”

Santos, 36, who represented New York’s 3rd Congressional District, a hotly contested swing district that includes parts of Nassau County and Queens, was the “first openly gay, nonincumbent Republican to win a congressional election” when he bested his Democratic opponent in the 2022 midterms, according to the Pew Research Center.

Murray said he was “very disappointed” with U.S. District Judge Joanna Seybert’s Friday sentencing of Santos to the government’s recommendation of 87 months. Murray and his co-counsel, Andrew Mancilla and Robert Fantone, had asked for a 24-month sentence.

“I was shocked; I was shocked,” Murray said. “I can’t tell you how many calls I’ve gotten from people — Republican and Democrat — who said this is so political, there’s no way anyone would have gotten this time if they weren’t George Santos.”

“I don’t think he should have done a day in jail, I really don’t,” said Murray, who said he and Santos are personal friends. “I think we are archaic the way we put people in cages for these financial crimes.”

Santos, who wept during Friday’s sentencing, was initially opposed to seeking a pardon, Murray said.

“I convinced him of it,” Murray said. “After the sentencing, I said, ‘listen, this is ridiculous now, it’s so obvious it’s political.’ He was very hesitant. He said, ‘I’ll take my licks and serve my sentence.’ When he got hit with the 87 months, I said, ‘You don’t owe 87 months. This was so political, so let me do what I gotta do.'”

Asked what was political about Santos’ prosecution, Murray said the top prosecutor on the case, the chief of public corruption, called him in May 2023 to say Santos had been indicted and he needed to turn himself in the next day for his initial court appearance.

Murray said he asked if it could wait until that Friday when Congress was in recess, but he refused.

Durham disputed the claim.

“The timing of Santos’s arraignment was driven by the timing of the Grand Jury’s indictment of Santos and the schedule of the court handling the arraignment, and nothing else,” he said in the statement. “The career prosecutors and investigators on this case conducted themselves with rigorous professionalism and Mr. Murray’s claims to the contrary are entirely baseless.”

The defense lawyer also said he is considering filing a motion for reconsideration of Santos’ sentencing, based on what he said were misstatements the judge made during Friday’s proceeding, including that Santos made $80,000 in a single day on Cameo.

“I’m very disappointed because the judge seems to be misguided,” Murray said. “It’s a little shocking that she relied on news reports.”

Murray said Santos made $366,390.70 from the video sharing application Cameo, the bulk of it in December 2023. And he was paid another $200,000 for his participation in a documentary.

The bulk of that money went to living expenses and attorney’s fees, Murray said. Santos also pays expenses for his sister and her child, who has autism, Murray said.

He also criticized Seybert for her comments about a letter Santos wrote to a judge in the case of Hector Medina, a Texas man who was convicted of trying to swindle Santos, in January 2025 that referenced himself as a member of Congress, long after he had been expelled from the body.

But Murray said Santos was referring to himself as a House member at the time of Medina’s conduct.

“In that circumstance, he was a crime victim,” said Murray.

In the meantime, Murray is hoping the Bureau of Prisons places Santos, when he’s scheduled to report to prison on July 25, in a facility somewhere in the northeast so he and Santos’ family can visit him relatively easily.

Murray said he’s also upset Seybert refused to recommend that Santos be placed in protective custody, citing a Florida man who was convicted of calling his congressional office and threatening to kill him.

With Laura Figueroa Hernandez