An attorney for disgraced hip-hop mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs has confirmed that his team has reached out to the White House about a potential pardon. Combs was convicted of two felony counts of transportation to engage in prostitution last month and remains behind bars as he awaits an Oct. 3 sentencing date that could send him to prison for up to two decades.
“It’s my understanding that we’ve reached out and had conversations in reference to a pardon,” lawyer Nicole Westmoreland told CNN without offering any additional details on who Combs’ team has engaged with and what the prospects are of Trump offering up a reprieve for the former rap powerhouse whose career and once sprawling empire have melted down in the wake of his Sept. 2024 arrest in New York on a grand jury indictment.
That finding accused Diddy, 55, of operating a criminal enterprise that engaged or tried to engage in sex trafficking, forced labor, drug offenses, kidnapping and arson, among other claims; after a trial earlier this year, Combs was convicted on two federal prostitution-related charges while being acquitted on more serious sex trafficking and racketeering counts.
Trump has already issued a series of controversial pardons during his second presidency, including for reality TV stars Todd and Julie Chrisley, the more than 1,500 Jan. 6 rioters who stormed the Capitol, former chief strategist Steve Bannon and former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, among others. In addition, Trump has also issued pardons or commutations for a number of hip-hop figures including NBA YoungBoy, Death Row Records co-founder Michael “Harry-O” Harris, and Lil Wayne and Kodak Black (the latter two at the end of his first term).
Speaking to Newsmax last week, Trump suggested he was considering a pardon of his one-time friend Combs, maybe. “Well, he was essentially half-innocent… I was very friendly with him, I got along with him great and he seemed like a nice guy. I didn’t know him well. But when I ran for office, he was very hostile,” Trump said, with the latter show of disloyalty via some “not so nice” comments about the commander in chief a possible deal-breaker.
Asked to clarify if Combs’ alleged hostility — it’s unclear what specifically Trump is referring to — would potentially scuttle a pardon, Trump said it would definitely make it “more difficult to do.” Asked to clarify, Trump agreed that it was “more likely a no” for Combs.
Trump and Combs were often pictured together at parties and public events before the former reality star became president. But Diddy appeared to distance himself from his former friend in 2017 when he told the Daily Beast that he did not “really give a f–k about Trump.” After Trump lost to President Joe Biden in 2020, Combs told Charlamagne Tha God that “white men like Trump need to be banished… the number one priority it to get Trump out of office.”
As for how Combs’ teams was feeling about his pardon chances after Trump’s comments, Westmoreland said this week that her client is “a very hopeful person, and I believe that he remains hopeful.” But when contacted by CNN, a White House official said they would not “comment on the existence or nonexistence of any clemency request.”
One of Trump’s most ardent conservative supporters, former Fox News host Megyn Kelly, lashed out last month over the initial reports about a possible Diddy pardon, vehemently advocating against one. “He doesn’t deserve it,” she wrote on X. “He’s a Trump hater. He’s a woman abuser. MAGA is already upset over elites seeming to cover for each other. This would not help. GOP struggling w/young female voters, most of whom will HATE a Diddy pardon.”
Diddy remains locked up in the Brooklyn Metropolitan Detention Center pending his sentencing in October after a New York judge denied him bail for a fifth time this week despite the Bad Boy Records founder’s team offering to put up a $50 million bond for his release.
Watch CNN’s report on the pardon speculation below.
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