Sandberg was a member of the Norwegian parliament from 1997 to 2017 (2005–2017 from the Sør-Trøndelag constituency, and before that from Nord-Trøndelag), and served as chair of the parliamentary standing committees on Justice, and Transport and Communications.
[8] After finishing Upper Secondary school, he held numerous different jobs including as a bartender and waiter at a Ski resort in Ustaoset, and later as a process operator at Norske Skog Skogn from 1982 to 1997, where he became the local trade union representative.
[9] He was a member of the Nord-Trøndelag county council from 1995 to 1997, until the 1997 parliamentary election in which he secured the party nomination, beating his friend (and future minister) Robert Eriksson.
[17] On 20 March 2018 Sandberg was appointed as acting Minister of Justice, Public Security and Immigration in Solberg's Cabinet after Sylvi Listhaug resigned.
[22] In 2003, Sandberg stated that "different races, religions and cultures must not be mixed" if there are to be a "harmonious society in Norway", leading to strong reactions from other politicians.
[24] Sandberg has been accused of stirring up anti-Roma sentiment by stating, in 2013: "At the borders, police can [under existing laws] stop organized groups of Roma, Bulgarians or French because we know from experience that these people disrupt the peace and it has also been proven that many of them engage in criminal activities.
"[25] In 2007 Sandberg claimed Al Gore of being "a big fraud", a "Christian-fundamentalist" and "super-capitalist who have earned over 600 million NOK on the climate cause".
[27] He made headlines when in January 1997 he headbutted and punched an asylum seeker from Yugoslavia in the face after the latter had called him "pale-white, fat and rich" and "racist".
As a result of this incident, subsequent intense pressure from the media, heavy workload and losing his mother around the same time, Sandberg later wrote that he slipped into a depression, and that he contemplated suicide, only to be saved at the last minute by a phone call from his fiancé.
[32] In November 2011, in the middle of a public Labour-Progress feud and a heated session in parliament, Sandberg accused the Labour Party of exploiting the Utøya massacre for political gain.
Accompanying him on the trip was 28-year old Bahareh Letnes (née Nasserabad), an Iranian-born woman who had immigrated to Norway in her teens and subsequently was adopted by a Norwegian couple.
[36] Maritime business newspaper Fiskeribladet first reported on the case and wrote that Letnes was registered as the owner of a company involved in the exporting of seafood.
[37] Multiple politicians reacted to the news and questioned Sandberg's relation to Letnes, whether a conflict of interest existed, as well as whether the trip was approved by the prime ministers office.
[38] Prime Minister Erna Solberg later informed the Storting that Sandberg had violated government regulations by not notifying his ministry about the vacation.
[39][40] Many politicians, including party colleges Mazyar Keshvari and Christian Tybrig-Gjedde, also criticised Sandberg for seemingly "glorying" the Iranian regime when he appeared on a radio show where he spoke warmly of Iran as a travel destination.
[42] After weeks of mounting pressure from the media, opposition and fellow politicians Sandberg resigned as cabinet minister and First deputy leader of the Progress Party on 13 August.
[45] In July the same man, who had mental problems and had been given residence permit in Norway on humanitarian grounds, also punched down Labour Party politician Knut Storberget.