Jeffrey Toobin’s Crocodile Tears Over George Santos’ Commutation Aren’t Fooling Anyone
New York Times columnist Jeffrey Toobin is loudly upset that President Donald Trump commuted former Rep. George Santos’ prison sentence. He even wrote an op-ed titled “The Santos Commutation Is No Joke” to make his case. The volume of his outrage deserves a closer look.
Toobin piled on, writing that, “Over his two terms, Mr. Trump has pardoned or commuted the sentences of a raft of former Republican members of the House,” to argue that the commutations reveal something about the president. That line is meant to sting, but it’s also selective. Context matters when we talk about clemency.
Among those receiving such grants were Duke Cunningham, of California, who was convicted of taking over $2 million in bribes, among other crimes; Duncan Hunter, also of California, who pocketed thousands of dollars of campaign contributions and spent it on extramarital affairs; Rick Renzi, of Arizona, who was convicted of racketeering and extortion; Robin Hayes, of North Carolina, who lied to investigators in a bribery investigation; Chris Collins, of New York, who pleaded guilty to insider trading and false statements; Michael Grimm, also of New York, who pleaded guilty to tax evasion and also admitted in court that he committed perjury and hired undocumented immigrants; John Rowland, of Connecticut, a former governor as well as congressman, who pleaded guilty to election fraud after going to prison years earlier in a separate scandal; and Steve Stockman, of Texas, who was released after serving only two years of a 10-year sentence for stealing upward of $1 million.
Toobin also argued Santos didn’t deserve a commutation and said the ex-congressman “remains best known for the colorful falsehoods that he told about his personal and professional lives, from his nonexistent volleyball championships to his never-happened career at Goldman Sachs.” Those lies are indefensible and he was convicted for serious crimes. Santos served an 87-month sentence after convictions for wire fraud and identity theft, and Trump’s commutation removed the requirement that he pay $370,000 in court-ordered restitution.
Toobin tried to frame clemency as a moral test of presidents and suggested Trump’s choices reflect an amoral worldview. He wrote that pardons could be presented “as fresh starts for men who had acknowledged their wrongdoing and wanted to start new chapters,” and then mocked those who still call themselves “political prisoners” and victims of “witch hunts.” The point is standard, but the application is selective.
This has been especially true of Mr. Trump. Of course, his most notorious pardons remain those for the 1,500-plus rioters and other criminals at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, who tried, by violent means, to overturn Mr. Trump’s loss to Joe Biden in the election of 2020. But the clemencies for George Santos and the other Republican politicians are part of the same piece.
Mr. Trump’s worldview is characterized by amoral deal-making, where friends are rewarded and enemies punished, regardless of the merits of their underlying conduct. In the end, the clemency for Mr. Santos wasn’t even really about the former congressman but rather about the president who granted it. Mercy, which was and remains the proper justification for the pardon power, had nothing to do with it.
If Toobin is going to make clemency a moral rubric, then his outrage should be even-handed. Yet when President Joe Biden commuted the sentence of former Pennsylvania judge Michael Conahan — convicted for his role in the “kids-for-cash” scandal, where he and another judge accepted $2.8 million in kickbacks and sent over 2,300 children to for-profit detention centers — Toobin’s fury was conspicuously absent. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court later overturned about 4,000 juvenile convictions tied to that scheme, and critics across the spectrum called Biden’s move wrong.
Biden’s clemency record included other controversial releases as well. Russel McIntosh was freed after federal drug convictions despite a history of violent crimes, including the fatal shooting of a woman and her two-year-old daughter, and he pleaded guilty to state murder charges. Adrian Peeler, tied to a 1999 conspiracy that led to the murder of Karen Clarke and her eight-year-old son, was also offered clemency, even though the victims were on a witness list and were killed about a month before they were set to testify.
Toobin didn’t make much noise about those decisions. That selective shock makes his moralizing about Trump look less like principle and more like partisan theater. If clemency reveals a president’s soul, then critics should apply the same standard regardless of party.
This isn’t to argue Santos deserved to be freed — what he did to donors was odious and he should have faced the consequences. The prison conditions he endured may have been unfair, and a president who cares about justice could have addressed mistreatment without wiping out restitution. Still, the real issue here is consistency in moral outrage, and that’s where Toobin and his crowd fail the test.
They only object when a Republican acts, which is why their complaints ring hollow. When indignation has a party label, it loses credibility fast.
