Sean “Diddy” Combs, who is serving a four-year prison sentence for prostitution-related crimes, has asked Donald Trump for a pardon, but the US president said he does not plan to grant clemency to the hip-hop star.
Trump, in an interview with The New York Times published on Thursday, also said he does not plan to issue pardons to several other high-profile individuals, including deposed Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro.
Sex trafficking
The 56-year-old Combs was convicted last July of two counts of transporting people across state lines for prostitution.
A jury acquitted the music mogul of the most serious charges – sex trafficking and racketeering.
Trump told the Times during Wednesday’s interview that Combs had sent him a letter asking for a pardon but he was not inclined to grant it.
Asked about pardoning Maduro, who was seized by US forces over the weekend and is facing drug trafficking charges, Trump said: “No, I don’t see that.”
Disgraced crypto tycoon
In November, Donald Trump pardoned Honduran ex-president Juan Orlando Hernandez, who was serving a 45-year sentence after being convicted of drug trafficking.
Trump also said he did not plan to issue pardons to disgraced crypto tycoon Sam Bankman-Fried, who is serving a 25-year prison sentence, and former Democratic senator Robert Menendez, who is serving an 11-year sentence for accepting bribes.
The Times said the Republican president was also asked whether he would consider pardoning Derek Chauvin, the white Minneapolis police officer convicted of the 2020 murder of George Floyd, whose death sparked nationwide racial justice protests.
“I haven’t been asked about it,” Trump said.
On the day of his inauguration Trump pardoned more than 1 500 people who had been convicted or were facing charges for involvement in the 6 January 2021 attack on the US Capitol by his supporters.
He has carried out a slew of other pardons since then of other loyalists.
By Garrin Lambley © Agence France-Presse