President Donald Trump said he will not pardon Sean “Diddy” Combs, after reportedly getting a personal letter from the hip-hop star.
During an interview with The New York Times, the 79-year-old leader said that Diddy “asked me for a pardon through a letter,” but that he was not considering granting his request.
Trump also said he does not plan to pardon other well-known inmates, including Sam Bankman-Fried, former New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez, or former Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, who is facing federal narco-terrorism charges.
However, Trump has recently pardoned several others, such as Binance co-founder Changpeng Zhao, former Honduras President Juan Orlando Hernández, many allies charged in the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, and others who tried to overturn the 2020 election, including former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, his former personal lawyer.
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Trump did not explain to The New York Times why he is not considering clemency for Diddy, although he has changed his stance on a possible pardon in the past.
In May, before Diddy was convicted on prostitution-related charges, Trump suggested he might pardon the Bad Boy Records founder, who he once socialised with in celebrity circles.
“I would certainly look at the facts if I think somebody was mistreated, whether they like me or don’t like me,” Trump said at the time, noting that his fellow New Yorker “used to really like me a lot” before he entered politics.
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“I haven’t spoken to him in years,” Trump said. “I think when I ran for politics that relationship sort of ended. He didn’t tell me that, but I read some not-so-nice things in the paper.”
In July, after Diddy’s conviction, an administration source told Deadline that Trump was “seriously considering” a pardon before Diddy’s October sentencing, but no official decision was made.
On October 6, three days after sentencing, Trump told reporters in the Oval Office that Diddy had formally asked for a presidential pardon, but he did not give more details about what might happen.
The 56-year-old rapper is now serving a 50-month sentence at FCI Fort Dix in New Jersey. Last month, his lawyers appealed his conviction and sentence, arguing that the case was an unfair prosecution of sexual activity between consenting adults.
Soon after he was moved to the low-security prison in late October, Diddy reportedly told other inmates that Trump would pardon him in early 2026, according to TMZ.
