George Santos is done with politics for now – instead, he wants to use his newfound freedom to make prisons more humane, he told The Washington Post.
The disgraced Republican US Representative from New York was released from prison on Friday after President Donald Trump commuted his seven-year sentence for wire fraud and identity theft.
“There is nothing more that I want to do than to focus and dedicate my entire life to prison reform,” Santos said in a Saturday interview with the Post.
Santos, who was booted from Congress in 2023 after a damning ethics report, told the Post that his experience in federal prison was “dehumanising” and “humbling”.
Santos had admitted to stealing the identities of 11 people, including his own family members, was released on Friday night, US media reported.
He embellished much about his biography in the run-up to his election to Congress in 2022.
In the 84 days he served in prison, Santos wrote a handful of columns published on The South Shore Press’ website.
He has described the prison system as “broken” with “rotting facilities, and administrators who seem incapable or unwilling to correct it”. He said a gaping hole in the ceiling exposed “thick black mold” underneath, and that broken air conditioning forced prisoners to endure sweltering heat.
“The building itself is hardly fit for long-term habitation: sheet metal walls, shoddy construction, the look and feel of a temporary warehouse rather than a permanent facility,” Santos wrote.
Santos told the Post that he spoke with Trump on Saturday and informed the president of his mission to get involved in prison reform and to “help his administration achieve that in whichever way I can”.
It’s not clear how exactly Santos intends to work on prison reform, and his lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment from BBC.
Santos told CNN’s Dana Bash on Sunday that he’s not interested in running for office again just yet, at least for the next decade.
“I’m all politicked out,” he told Bash.
The Bureau of Prisons responded to a request for comment from BBC saying that it could not answer media inquiries due to the ongoing government shutdown.
A contact for the prison Santos was held in, FCI Fairton in New Jersey, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Santos’ allegations of poor conditions and mistreatment.
By BBC News
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