Marjorie Taylor Greene calls for George Santos' 7-year sentence to be commuted
But George Santos is no ordinary former politician.
In a letter Monday, U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene formally came to the aid of the disgraced ex-congressman with a request that his seven-year prison sentence be commuted, arguing that the length of the term represented 'a grave injustice.'
The plea, which was sent to a Justice Department pardon attorney, came less than two weeks after Santos began his sentence.
'While his crimes warrant punishment, many of my colleagues who I serve with have committed far worse offenses than Mr. Santos yet have faced zero criminal charges,' Greene, a Georgia Republican, wrote without elaborating. 'I strongly believe in accountability for one's actions, but I believe the sentencing of Mr. Santos is an abusive overreach by the judicial system.'
Republican President Donald Trump, in an interview with the conservative news outlet Newsmax last week, said no one has talked to him about taking action in Santos' case, but added 'that's a long time' when told of the ex-congressman's seven-year sentence.
'He lied like hell,' Trump said. 'And I didn't know him but he was 100% for Trump.'
Santos pleaded guilty last year to charges of wire fraud and aggravated identity theft following a damaging indictment that alleged he stole from political donors, paid for personal expenses with campaign contributions, lied to Congress and collected unemployment benefits while working.
Santos was once heralded in the Republican Party for winning a perennially contested New York congressional seat covering parts of Queens and Long Island. However, it all began to unravel when it became clear that he fabricated much of his life story.
At one point, he falsely claimed that his mother died in the 9/11 attacks. At another, he had to clarify that he was 'Jew-ish," not Jewish, when pressed about a claim that his grandparents had fled the Holocaust.
The lies made him a political pariah before he even got to Washington. Once there, he survived two expulsion attempts before a scathing House ethics committee report in late 2023 sealed his fate. He was expelled from Congress after a vote later that same year, becoming the sixth member in the chamber's history to be removed by colleagues.
Santos, long a Trump loyalist, has been holding out hope that his support of the Republican president could result in a reprieve from his criminal sentence.
In a dispatch from prison published Monday in the The South Shore Press, a newspaper on Long Island, Santos wrote, 'It's been just over a week now, but I can tell you this much: when people say 'prison sucks,' they aren't just talking about the bars and the bunks.'
"It's not just the loss of freedom — it's the erosion of your dignity. It's realizing how many basic human rights we all take for granted on the outside."
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CNN
a few seconds ago
- CNN
Analysis: What is gerrymandering? Why is it legal?
A version of this story appeared in CNN's What Matters newsletter. To get it in your inbox, sign up for free here. Halfway between the 2020 and 2030 census is not the normal time to be talking about redistricting, or gerrymandering, but the issue has nonetheless taken over the political conversation. Perhaps sensing some political weakness and fearing the loss of their House majority, Republicans are looking for more congressional seats. But rather than just trying to win them at the ballot box, they're primed to conjure additional seats by redrawing congressional maps in Texas. Democrats, tired of being outplayed, have threatened to redraw maps in states they control, such as New York and California, although it's more difficult to accomplish in states that, heretofore, have tried to make the process less political. Enabled by conservatives on the Supreme Court, whose decisions have chipped away at the Voting Rights Act and given a green light to partisan gerrymandering, the Texas effort could set off a full-on redistricting war in the years to come. So it's worth taking a step back to look at redistricting, gerrymandering and why things work the way they do. The Constitution lays out the general order of how members of Congress are divided among the states. The basic outline is this: There is a national census every 10 years to establish the number of residents in each state. House districts are then apportioned to the states based on each state's population. As states grow, they can gain seats. But if their population shrinks compared with those of other states, they can lose seats. But the Constitution leaves it to states to determine who, exactly, those members of Congress will represent. In states with more than one US representative, the process of drawing congressional maps is known as redistricting. Some states give that power to their legislatures. Others have assigned the task of redistricting to nonpartisan or bipartisan commissions. The Constitution says that 'the whole number of free persons' should be counted. The original version excluded 'Indians not taxed' and counted only 'three fifths of all other Persons.' That ugly acknowledgment of slavery is one of the few mentions of the country's original sin in the Constitution. The 14th Amendment, enacted after the Civil War, removed the three-fifths clause and declared everyone born in the US to be a citizen. Now, notably, Trump wants to end birthright citizenship as one way to address undocumented immigration. Republicans also want to exclude undocumented people from the census, something Trump tried and failed to accomplish in 2020. It's the drawing of political maps for partisan gain. Republicans and Democrats both do it, but Republicans have more openly embraced the process. In practice, it's the equivalent of politicians picking their voters instead of the other way around, which is an inversion of the democratic process. North Carolina, for instance, leans ever-so-slightly toward Republicans in presidential elections, but thanks to gerrymandering, 10 of its 14 congressional seats are held by Republicans. Democrats have done the same in multiple states they control. Elbridge Gerry was a signer of the Declaration of Independence, but later, as governor of Massachusetts, he signed on to the drawing of a serpentine, salamander-like state Senate district. He is depicted in CGI in a recently published video on the White House Youtube's page frustrated that his name has been mispronounced ever since. His name should sound like Gary, Indiana. But in terms of redistricting, it's generally pronounced with a soft 'G,' like Jerry. It can look like inkblot art. 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Texas did it previously, in 2003. Mid-decade redistricting is prohibited by state law in some places, but not in Texas. Sure is, at least under federal law. The conservative majority on the Supreme Court so took away federal courts' power to review politically gerrymandered districts in a 2019 case. 'Federal judges have no license to reallocate political power between the two major political parties,' Chief Justice John Roberts wrote at the time, drawing the criticism of liberals on the court. Yes. Under the Voting Rights Act of 1965, there are restrictions on how state lines can be drawn to minimize the voting power of minorities. The Supreme Court is set to hear a case this year over maps in Louisiana that could further gut the Voting Rights Act protections. Districts are also supposed to have relatively equal representation, but that does not always work out. Delaware had more than 990,000 residents for its sole congressional district after the 2020 apportionment, but Rhode Island had about 549,000 each for its two. There are winners and losers in the apportionment process. Where they can, they do. In Illinois, former Vice President Kamala Harris got 54% of the vote in 2024, but Democrats, thanks to gerrymandering, won 14 of 17 congressional seats. But Democrats have handed away their power to gerrymander in states like California, where a nonpartisan commission draws congressional maps. In red states with such commissions, they have frequently been overturned by state lawmakers, such as in Utah, where a Democratic seat focused on Salt Lake City was carved up among Republican seats. Texas Republicans originally drew maps to protect incumbents. States like California, which have commission-drawn maps, frequently have more competitive seats. Democrats won most of them in 2024 in California. 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They write: GOP lawmakers in states such as Missouri and Florida have also expressed openness to new maps. Ohio, where lawmakers must redraw their maps under state redistricting laws, could also yield additional seats. Republicans hold government majorities in 23 states compared to Democrats' 15. The expectation should be that support for Trump and Republicans will soften in the coming election. That's not a value judgment on their leadership, but a historical reality. Every president's party going back to George W. Bush has lost the House in a midterm election. That includes Joe Biden's Democrats in 2022, Trump's Republicans in 2018, Barack Obama's Democrats in 2010, George W. Bush's Republicans in 2006 and Bill Clinton's Democrats in 1994. The redrawing of maps could blunt the effects of such a turn, but Democrats only need to win three more seats to flip the House. If there's a wave against Republicans, no amount of gerrymandering is likely to save that GOP majority.
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