President Donald Trump's commutation of former Congressman George Santos' prison sentence, based by his own admission in large part on him being a loyal Republican, was stupefying to conservative attorney turned anti-Trump activist and Society for the Rule of Law founder George Conway.
Speaking to "The Weeknight" on Friday, Conway detailed the crimes for which Santos was sent to prison — and laid into Trump for showing no concern for justice at all.
"I want to ask you, George ... George Santos. Seriously?" said anchor and former GOP chairman Michael Steele. "Is this the crap that we've come to at this point, where this administration, this president finds every convicted felon that went through a process that laid out a case, juries decided you guilty, and now we wrap around and he just sort of like,okay, we're just commute your system, yoursentence, it doesn't matter. And then at the same time,he's out here clamoring to get individuals who havenot committed crimes, allegedlyarrested and profiled ascriminals. I don't understand."
"It's completely nuts, but he's completely nuts, and so is Santos," said Conway. "And maybe that's the thing that joins them all together."
"I mean, look, under any normal pardon or commutation system, this guy is not eligible, okay?" Conway continued. "He committed flat-out fraud. There was no question about his guilt. And at the end of the day, he shows no remorse, no acceptance of responsibility. And he, you know, there is no reason to give him a break on his sentence. He committed flat-out fraud of his campaign, on his campaign books."
"And — but Trump, you know, I don't, he's not even liked by Republicans. He wasn't liked by Republicans. Nobody liked this guy. Even Trump, I don't think, really liked the guy," he added. "But there is something about, I guess, Trump finds appealing. A fraudster, I don't, maybe some kind of kinship. Maybe there's a kinship thing."