This is truly comical and it couldn’t happen to a more deserving pair of conmen, to wit, Donald Trump and George Santos. Santos walked out of his prison last Friday night after having served 5% of an 87-month sentence. He was feeling quite the large cat that night, I’ll warrant. And Trump also gave him a complete free pass on the $370,000 in restitution. Not that those Santos cheated had much chance of seeing their money anyhow, but at least when there was a judgment there was hope. So last Friday was yet one more abuse of the clemency power in the hands of Donald Trump, who is too much of an idiot and a child to responsibly use a power such as the one he has so cavalierly abused since he’s been able to do so. But New York state has been to this rodeo before when Trump was first in office and abused the pardon power.
Earlier, explaining that he was considering commuting Santos’s sentence, Trump said Santos “lied like hell, but he was 100 percent for Trump” during his few months in Congress before the walls closed in. That’s a spectacular pot-kettle moment even by Trump standards. More to the point, it’s a crystal-clear demonstration that in Trump’s moral universe, loyalty is the only currency that counts.
Trump’s stated rationale was that he believed Santos’s sentence was excessive given the nature of his crimes. It goes without saying that Trump knows nothing about condign sentences for Santos’s crimes, which were well within the heartland for his offenses. But in any event, that rationale can’t begin to justify a reduction of sentence from 87 to 3 months—topped off with a full pass on the $370,000 of restitution to the victims that he had been ordered to pay.
Remarkably, this particular outrage may actually be reversible—and the power to reverse it lies with the people of New York. And that’s because they established that power after being snookered by Trump in 2018.
In the wake of Trump’s pardon of Paul Manafort, New York lawmakers foresaw precisely this danger: a president abusing clemency to shield political allies. At the time, the state’s double-jeopardy rule barred prosecutors from bringing state cases based on the same “transaction” as a federal one, even if the federal conviction was later wiped away by pardon.
So in 2019, lawmakers in Albany closed the “Manafort loophole.” The legislature passed, and Governor Cuomo signed, CPL § 40.51, allowing state prosecutions to proceed even when the same conduct had been the subject of a federal charge—when the defendant has received “a reprieve, pardon, or other form of clemency” from the president.
The law rests on solid constitutional ground. Under the Supreme Court’s “separate sovereigns” doctrine, federal and state systems draw authority from different sources. A federal pardon ends only federal exposure; it does not preempt state prosecution.
The new statute has received very little treatment in the courts, but the phrase “other form of clemency” seems to comfortably reach the commutation of sentence in Santos’s case. It’s an act of mercy outside the normal processes of the criminal justice system. Indeed, the legislative history of the bill states that it “closes a loophole in New York’s double jeopardy law to ensure that individuals who receive a pardon, reprieve, commutation, or other form of clemency from the President may nonetheless be prosecuted under New York law for crimes arising from the same acts.” Numerous cases in the federal and state systems expressly recognize commutations as a form of clemency.
It follows that there is no bar in New York or federal law against charging Santos with state crimes based on the same conduct or transactions as the federal crimes to which he pleaded guilty.
Many of Santos’s federally charged acts also violate New York law. His schemes to mislead donors and divert campaign funds fit neatly under the Scheme to Defraud and Grand Larceny statutes. His false filings and fake identities implicate Falsifying Business Records and Identity Theft, both felonies. There are more potential charges under New York law. Moreover, several victims live in Nassau County, giving local prosecutors clear jurisdiction.
Nassau County District Attorney Anne Donnelly has been here before. Her office opened an inquiry into Santos in early 2023 after revelations about his fabricated biography and campaign finances. That investigation was put on hold once federal prosecutors filed their sweeping case in the Eastern District of New York. Now that Trump’s pardon has erased the federal judgment, Donnelly can—and should—reopen the file.
The Santos pardon distills Trump’s worldview to its essence. Equal justice under law has been replaced by a three-track system: one for Trump’s enemies, one for his lapdog servants, and one for everyone else.
That’s it in a nutshell. And hopefully this law, CPL § 40.51, will allow the District Attorney to see that justice is done. Trump doesn’t care about justice. Had he commuted Santos’ sentence even halfway through there probably would have been little outcry. Serving three and a half years of a seven-year sentence, assuming good behavior, all that, is reasonable. But he served a couple of months.
Once again Trump gave the middle finger to the rule of law and now the rule of law has a chance to do it to Trump. And Santos. Let us hope it happens. Laws are nothing more than a fiction if they’re not enforced.
MTG made the comment about Georgy, that everyone deserves a second chance. In my opinion this was not a second chance. I believe a second chance occurs when one has paid their debt to society. Like you said, at least half of his sentence. To be let off scot-free from restitution is beyond the pale IMO.
I can’t agree more. If he had served even one third of the sentence, I could deal with it better. And MTG is wrong about a “second chance.” Santos had about 20 second chances. He kept stealing and lying. If he had stopped after the first time, fine. That’s a different set of facts. But he kept going and going and going like the Energizer bunny, telling lie after lie and stealing from his campaign and anybody he could get a dollar out of.
The man is a moral wreck. But THAT’s what Trump liked about Santos, is his depravity. That’s what is sick about politics in this day and age.
Rump sure loves the liars, cheats, fraudsters, hucksters, conmen, grifters and abusers of women. He recognizes himself in them, that’s why he condones and pardons these a**hats.
This is a good analysis of the situation. The other portion of it, in my opinion, is of course he loves to “own the libs” by wrecking the rule of law as much as he can. Trump is a spoiled rich brat child. I’m sure when he was a kid he broke things, probably other kids’ toys, all that, because he could.
He didn’t learn accountability early in life. Most of us do. We find out what it is to be grounded, go without some privilege or benefit, whatever. The “worst” thing his frustrated parents did was send Trump to military school and my guess is that that made him worse.
I knew a woman who sent her eff up of a 15-year-old to juvenile hall (with the consent of the authorities) and he came back from there a bigger eff up than when he went in. He came out of juvie hall a scary guy, a kind of Travis Bickle character. He was a young punk when he went in, but came out Taxi Driver. I have always suspected that the same thing happened to Trump.