A retired member of the US navy who alleges to have lost thousands of dollars meant for his dying dog when the Donald Trump-freed George Santos defrauded him says he now views the president as a “walking middle finger”.
Richard Osthoff’s emotional comments on Monday on MSNBC’s Chris Jansing Reports came three days after Trump commuted Santos’s seven-year, three-month prison sentence, which was given to the former New York representative in connection with federal fraud charges.
Osthoff has previously accused Santos of raising $3,000 on the GoFundMe platform in 2016 to benefit the military veteran’s dying service dog, Sapphire. But Osthoff said Sapphire ended up dying after Santos kept the money for himself – accusations that never led to criminal charges.
Santos has previously called “reports that I would let a dog die … shocking and insane” and denied wrongdoing in a text to the outlet Semafor.
Santos made history in 2022 as the first out LGBTQ+ Republican elected to Congress. He was later exposed for having lied prolifically about his biography, and a House ethics committee detailed how Santos used campaign funds for personal travel, cosmetic treatments and luxury goods.
He ultimately was expelled from Congress, pleaded guilty to wire fraud and identity theft, reported to a federal prison in New Jersey in July, and served three months of the sentence given to him before Trump commuted the punishment on Friday. The commutation from Trump – who won a second presidency in 2024 despite a criminal conviction of falsifying business records – set the stage for Santos to be released from prison on Saturday.
“He lied like hell,” Trump said of his fellow Republican to Newsmax. “But he was 100% for Trump.”
Santos’s release provoked criticism from both ends of the US political spectrum. And on Monday, Osthoff joined that chorus, saying he was repulsed by the clemency Trump afforded Santos.
“I was really just sick to my stomach for the president of the United States to stick me in the gut with a knife,” Osthoff remarked on Jansing’s show. Santos “should have done at least half of his seven years”, he said. “This is disgusting.”
Osthoff also maintained Santos’ commutation was not the first time Trump had done something disrespectful to a military veteran. He alluded to a 2020 report that asserted Trump had insulted dead US troops as “suckers and losers” – which the president has denied.
“It’s shameful and a disgrace – and I’m almost ashamed that I served my country now. This is not the country I raised my hand [to serve],” Osthoff said. “That man disrespects the military and veterans and just about everybody that doesn’t wear a red hat” synonymous with his Make America great again slogan “every single day”.
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“He’s a walking middle finger,” Osthoff also said of Trump – who has issued several other pardons and commutations since returning to the Oval Office in January, including to about 1,500 people who attacked the US Capitol in his name in early 2021.
Santos on Sunday appeared on CNN and argued that his prison sentence, though humbling to him, had been “disproportionate”.
He said on Sunday’s edition of the Fox & Friends Weekend program that he no longer had to pay the nearly $375,000 in restitution that – along with $205,000 in forfeiture – he agreed to when he pleaded guilty.
Soon after his release from prison, Santos had gotten back on the Cameo website, a platform that says it sells personalized video messages from celebrities “for any occasion”. He also told CNN that he would “love to be involved with prison reform, and not in a partisan way – in a real, human way”.
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