George Santos, just a week out of prison, is planning meetings with Trump officials on reforming the justice system and exploring opportunities for media gigs — but not before a splurge on $300 worth of sushi.
“I was just like, ‘This is actual food,’” he said of his high-priced, first post-prison lunch. “It’s not frozen or expired, thank God — it’s so good.”
The ex-Queens congressman, who saw his fraud sentence of over seven years commuted after serving about three months, said in an interview with Bloomberg Law that he plans to make the most of his second chance.
According to him, he has no shortage of options and isn’t ruling much out.
During a call with President Donald Trump, who commuted Santos’ sentence on Oct. 17, Santos said the president asked him he wanted to do with his life now. He told Trump he wanted to work on reforming the nation’s prison system, asking Trump if he could work with his administration to do so.
The president was receptive, Santos said, and now Santos is meeting with Bureau of Prisons officials in the coming weeks.
“It’s moving, it’s happening,” Santos said. “It’s not just words in the wind.” (A White House official said: “The White House does not comment on the President’s private conversations that may or may not have happened.”)
It’s a world away from just earlier this month, when he was in solitary confinement. He pleaded guilty in August 2024 to wire fraud and identity theft.
As part of the plea deal, Santos confessed to a wide range of conduct, including filing bogus reports with the Federal Election Commission, embezzling campaign funds, charging credit cards without authorization and fraudulently obtaining unemployment benefits.
The onetime rising Republican star, who gained notoriety for falsely claiming to have worked for Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Citigroup Inc., served in Congress for less than a year, but has maintained a staying power in the culture through his feisty social media personality, his personalized videos on Cameo, and quotable appearances on podcasts and TV.
He plans to stay at the center of attention. Though he has talked to his attorney, Joe Murray, about going to law school, Santos is leaning against it: “I don’t need to go to law school because I already understand law.”
“I don’t want to make money off of my activism,” he said, “because then it becomes murky, and then I’ll just become another grifter.”
So how does he plan to make money? “I’m not saying no to reality TV,” he said, but he has other “lucrative” opportunities in media along the lines of punditry, he said.
Would he run for office again? “Not in the near future,” he said, adding his husband would kick him out of the house if he did. In politics, he said, “everyone’s a critic.”
Santos said he’s apologetic for his crimes. “To say I ate humble pie is an understatement,” he said.
He also plans to pay back his victims—"the moment I have the means"—even if he doesn’t legally have to. “It’s really the last thing between me and 100% moving forward,” he said.
Murray praised Santos’ efforts to secure his release. “My advice is to be persistent, because that’s what it was,” he said. “It was making the calls, reaching out to people, and reinforcing. It was persistence, but honestly it was George, George being who he is. He was doing his own advocacy. A lot of people went to bat for him, as much as I would love to take credit for it.”
While the commutation removes the federal penalties, Nassau County District Attorney Anne T. Donnelly earlier this week suggested she’s investigating state charges against Santos.
“This fell on my head like an anvil, to be honest with you,” Santos said in response. “To my understanding, I don’t have any liability or exposure with the state.”
Since his release a week ago, Santos said he’s been reuniting with family and conversing with his lawyer, but he’s also hit the road to conduct “63 interviews worldwide in three different languages. I’m the largest story of the week.”
While he doesn’t think of himself as a celebrity along the lines of Julia Roberts or Angela Bassett—"to name my favorites,” he said—he understands the interest.
“There’s a celebrity quality and aspect to the insanity and my very public unraveling and chaos,” he said. “The whole world got to see a grown man have a meltdown and go down in a ball of flames, but now bounce back. You couldn’t have scripted this if you tried.”
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