He was convicted of accepting a bribe in the FBI's Abscam sting operation, and served more than a year in prison.

In the 1972 contest Jenrette defeated the seventeen-term Congressman John L. McMillan in the primary, but lost the general election to the Republican, Edward Lunn Young.

This time he won, in part because of the extreme unpopularity of Republican Richard Nixon and the Watergate scandal.

Jenrette placed great emphasis on constituent service, and he and his staff were widely recognized as the most responsive office the Sixth District had ever seen.

Among his many constituent services was securing federal funding for a high span bridge over the Sampit River in Georgetown, South Carolina, allowing sea-going vessels to travel upstream.

He subsequently ran a public relations firm called Lehuguenot, Ltd.,[7] in Myrtle Beach and developed property in nearby Cherry Grove.

In 2017, the book Capitol Steps and Missteps: The Wild, Improbable Ride of Congressman John Jenrette was published.

While promoting the book, Jenrette described his years since Congress as including "marketing an experimental balloon-operated flotation device; running (and then folding) a national chain of timeshares; breeding horses in Bulgaria; and selling Phillip Morris cigarettes in Eastern Europe immediately after the fall of the Soviet Union".

[9][10][11] South Carolina congressman James Clyburn issued a statement of tribute following Jenrette’s death.