76 Pounds Lighter, He Complains About Food : Unrepentant Rep. Hansen Leaves Prison

Former Rep. George Hansen walked out of federal prison today, saying he felt “some indignation” but no remorse after six months behind bars for lying on congressional financial disclosure forms.

The ultra-conservative Idaho Republican--the first public official convicted under the 1978 Ethics in Government Act for disclosure violations--left prison 76 pounds lighter from his stay and a three-week hunger strike to protest prison food.

Hansen said the weight loss felt ‘like taking two Army back-packs off.”

He talked to a flock of reporters for nearly an hour, complaining about having been imprisoned and about the food served at the Federal Correctional Institution at Petersburg.

Hansen, 56, served seven terms in the House before being convicted of concealing income and sentenced to a 15-month prison term. He will return to his home in Arlington, Va., and reopen his Washington consulting business.

Hansen displayed a “special award” signed by dozens of inmates for his “outstanding ridicule and harassment of the prison administration.”

David Chapman, the prison administrator, laughed it off, saying the prison is accustomed to being criticized. But he denied Hansen’s allegations of unsanitary food.

While imprisoned, in letters to columnist Jack Anderson, Hansen called the prison an “American gulag “ and said food was served in a roach-infested dining room and delivered in a slime-encrusted truck.

Hansen complained that he never should have been sent to prison because other officials, including Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III and “every member of Congress,” had made errors on their financial disclosure forms that they were permitted to correct, while he was prosecuted and convicted.