.png){kind=logo}
Everyone knows Donald Trump changes his mind on a dime, but it looks like Sean “Diddy” Combs will not be receiving a pardon from his old buddy after all.
In a wide-ranging sit-down with the New York Times, who kept leaked news of the administration’s New Year’s plan to snatch Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro under wraps, the former Apprentice host spilled that the much accused and currently incarcerated Combs reached out in writing seeking clemency.
Trump said Combs “asked me for a pardon … through a letter.”
Asked in the Oval Office interview about the timing of the correspondence from the “All About the Benjamins” performer, who was sentence October 3 to four years behind bars and $500,000 in fines after his July 2 conviction on two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution, Trump quipped, “Oh, would you like to see that letter?”
Typically, Trump did not actually show the letter to the NYT reporters but did tell them he was not considering a pardon for Combs. Not that this was the first time Trump brought up Combs wanting his help. During a freewheeling October 6 press conference, Trump proclaimed: “I call him Puff Daddy. He has asked me for a pardon.”
A few weeks later, Trump had significantly cooled to granting Combs the break he sought. “It was always going to be a long shot if he would grant the pardon or not,” a person close to events told Deadline.
Today, Diddy’s team had no comment on Trump’s letter revelation and the status of any pardon when contacted by Deadline.
Even before the verdict over Combs’ “freak-offs”-fueled trial, which saw the Bad Boys Records founder acquitted on sex-trafficking and racketeer charges, a pardon had been both hoped for and a possibility from POTUS. Certainly the fact that the lead prosecutor on Diddy’s case was Maurene Comey, the now-fired daughter of Trump foe and ex-FBI director James Comey, played into Trump’s grievance and persecution mentality.
As Deadline exclusively reported back in late July, Trump has been “seriously considering” a presidential pass for Combs. Later, citing criticism from Diddy during his first term, Trump walked back the idea of giving who he called the “half-innocent” Combs a pardon. Attorneys for Combs confirmed they had attempted to gain the White House’s favor.
Still, despite outcry from the likes of Megyn Kelly and outrage from Combs’ enemy and Sean Combs: The Reckoning EP Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson, Trump never totally dropped the notion of a pardon, multiple sources told me. However, in the chaos of Trump 2.0, a deal was never sealed.
As it stands, with a fast-tracked appeal on the runway for this spring, Diddy is now set to be released from the low-security Fort Dix in New Jersey on May 25, 2028.
Unless Democrats sweep the midterms and impeach him, as Trump recently predicted, the onetime NYC real estate developer will still be in office when Combs gets out of the joint — maybe he’ll invite him over to the new ballroom.
English (US) ·