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George Santos charged with defrauding campaign donors

Trebuchet said:
Always remember, Trump is a career criminal. He's been a grifter and cheater for his entire life. His mentor was mob lawyer Roy Cohn, who likely despaired at how dumb he was.
He understands Santos as a kindred spirit, more than pretty much any other human being.
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I don't think it's anything so complicated as that.

Santos wrote a letter to Trump kissing his ass and praising Trump to the high heavens. That was all it took.
 
Marjorie Taylor Greene was also lobbying for Santos.

The Republican Reps on Long Island are really unhappy about this. They are at risk of losing their seats and this doesn't help them.
 
dann said:
So why did it work for George Santos but not for Ghislaine Maxwell? Didn't they have Santos where they wanted him? Couldn't they have transferred him to a luxurious version of a prison and threatened to send him back to a worse one if he stepped out of line?

Could this be the reason why Santos has been released?

And if it is, why doesn't it work for Maxwell?
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I don't know if Santos does actually have leverage, if they have no reason to keep him in it may just be King Stylophone's capriciousness. But a difference between them is that Maxwell, so far as I'm aware, still has a British passport. Santos is pretty much stuck in America where getting out of line can be punished. Pardon Maxwell and she can return to Europe, if she still has her trust fund then that's £80k/year, not a fortune (although more than double the average wage) but with her rich relatives (and any investments, savings etc) she could certainly leave the country easily then sell her story.
 
ZiprHead said:
I don't think it's anything so complicated as that.

Santos wrote a letter to Trump kissing his ass and praising Trump to the high heavens. That was all it took.
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This.

One of the oldest and most common mistakes people make in assessing Trump is that there's some underlying scheme to his actions, to achieve some larger goal. There isn't. He's a big, stupid baby. Don't make it complicated.
 
I think the Santos commutation after less than 3 months in jail for grifting hundreds of thousands from many people including relatives has a clear purpose.

He's waving potP at all the federal employees and others he is asking to do dubious, and sometimes illegal things. He's saying: "I've Got Your Back."

potP = power of the Pardon.
 
Venom said:
If Maxwell had what people assume she has don't you think she would have revealed it a long time ago? A rough pretrial detention, risking trial and spending years in jail in order to leverage info she supposedly has from an extremely compromised position, plus inviting enormous public scrutiny.
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She comes from a rich family, she won't lack for support.

I think people forget how young she (Maxwell) was, just after her father's death, broke in NY (it took a long time for probate), when Epstein took her on. She isn't much different from Giuffre. Giuffre actively recruited young girls for Epstein. Both were victims, and both were perpetrators.
 
P.J. Denyer said:
I don't know if Santos does actually have leverage, if they have no reason to keep him in it may just be King Stylophone's capriciousness. But a difference between them is that Maxwell, so far as I'm aware, still has a British passport. Santos is pretty much stuck in America where getting out of line can be punished. Pardon Maxwell and she can return to Europe, if she still has her trust fund then that's £80k/year, not a fortune (although more than double the average wage) but with her rich relatives (and any investments, savings etc) she could certainly leave the country easily then sell her story.
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More to the point she has a right to French citizenship who are far more reluctant to extradite to the US, and far more accommodating to older men and younger women in relationships.
 
Planigale said:
More to the point she has a right to French citizenship who are far more reluctant to extradite to the US, and far more accommodating to older men and younger women in relationships.
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Good point, I was thinking she might follow her trust fund to Lichtenstein, but France would make much more sense.
 
dann said:
Republicans... The party of law and order.
Admittedly I am not sure I understand Trump's mindset here. Santos cannot do anything "for" Trump at this point, he was never a particularly close ally of his, and while he may be a "good republican" he is an embarrassment.
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Is George Santos really an embarrassment to the Republicans at this point in time? Do Republicans object to his release? Has it caused an uproar in the MAGA movement that Trump has commuted the sentence of a criminal LGBTQ+ Republican? It doesn't seem so, does it?
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Maybe "embarrassment" is not the right word.

I figure the MAGAchud are probably apathetic whether he was released or not. They probably didn't care either way (unless its some sort of "tease the liberals" thing. "Ha ha! We own the libs because we got a convicted fraudster released"). However, I think opinion polls in his district showed a majority of voters didn't like him when he was in office (near the end of his tenure), so having him released and being in the news might negatively affect Republican chances in next year's mid terms (not because Republicans were "embarrassed" by Santos, but Santos was an embarrassment in general and him being in the news might affect support among independents.)
 
He's leaving NY as it will be too dangerous for him and his family.

George Santos
@MrSantosNY
Sadly it seems that my family and I will be departing the city I’ve called home my entire life. NYC will become a very dangerous place to live in if we elect mayor Mamdani and that is a risk I am unwilling to take now that I want to start growing my family.
 
Andy_Ross said:
He's leaving NY as it will be too dangerous for him and his family.

George Santos
@MrSantosNY
Sadly it seems that my family and I will be departing the city I’ve called home my entire life. NYC will become a very dangerous place to live in if we elect mayor Mamdani and that is a risk I am unwilling to take now that I want to start growing my family.
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Fantastic reverse endorsement for Mamdani.
 
dann said:
Trump gets George Santos out of prison (David Pakman on YouTube, Oct 18, 2025 - 5:50 min.)
Trump commutes sentence of former US Rep. George Santos in federal fraud case (AP News, Oct 18, 2025)

Why does it take him so long to come up with a good excuse for releasing Ghislaine Maxwell?
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Ghislaine Maxwell's pardon would cause a firestorm that even Trump doesn't want ignited because He has so much of his own feces in that dried brush. Santos was just a case of sticky fingers, he had no taste for underage girls I know about.
 
Nosi said:
Ghislaine Maxwell's pardon would cause a firestorm that even Trump doesn't want ignited because He has so much of his own feces in that dried brush. Santos was just a case of sticky fingers, he had no taste for underage girls I know about.
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Underage boys maybe.
 
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