Trump Says Diddy Has Already Sought a Pardon; Lawyers Push for Relocation to Minimum Security Prison

Donald Trump says Diddy asked him for a pardon after his sentencing on Friday, but the president didn’t indicate whether he would grant one.

Sean “Diddy” Combs was sentenced to four years in prison on Friday, after he was found guilty of two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution. Now, after speaking to reporters in the Oval Office this week, Trump revealed Combs had already asked him for a pardon, although he gave no indication that he planned to grant one.

“A lot of people have asked me for pardons,” said Trump. “I call him Puff Daddy. He has asked me for a pardon.”

Back in July, rumors began circulating that Combs was going to ask the president for a pardon. Reporters asked Trump in August about his thoughts on a possible pardon for Combs, but he didn’t sound terribly interested, noting Diddy’s prior anti-Trump sentiments.

“Well, he was essentially, I guess, sort of half innocent. Probably,” said Trump during an interview in August, referring to Combs’ having been acquitted of the more serious charges against him. “I was very friendly with him, but when I ran for office, he was very hostile, and it’s hard. So, I don’t know; it’s more difficult.”

Of course, Trump isn’t the only one talking about Combs’ recent sentencing. Incarcerated Death Row Records co-founder Suge Knight spoke with The Art of Dialogue from prison to discuss his thoughts on the matter.

“As far as Puffy is concerned, it’s a great day for him,” said Knight. “It’s an even better day for his family, you know? […] Overall though, it’s not surprising. We do all know one thing: like I said before, Puffy has strong ties with the government; with the feds, and anybody else would’ve been cooked.”

Knight also claimed that Combs’ sentencing was “the first time in history that a person going to get sentenced [could] actually put on a campaign like they’re running for the President of the United States.”

“Only thing I was waiting on was them bringing out the DJ and start playing music and letting him do what he does best—dance and shake that ass and end up with no time,” Knight added cheekily, noting that because of Combs’ alleged government ties, there was never any real risk of him getting “a lot of time or ever really [getting] punished.”

Meanwhile, on the heels of Diddy’s sentencing, his lawyers are pushing for the music mogul to be sent to a low-security federal prison in New Jersey. In a letter submitted to the court on Monday, Combs’ attorneys asked the judge that the Federal Bureau of Prisons place their client at FCI Fort Dix, located at the joint military base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst.

One of several dozen federal prisons with a residential drug treatment program, FCI Fort Dix will enable Combs to “address drug abuse issues and to maximize family visitation and rehabilitative efforts,” his lawyers write.

FCI Fort Dix has been home to a number of high-profile inmates, including mobsters, drug traffickers, and corrupt politicians. It also held, at one point, disgraced “Pharma Bro” Martin Shkreli, best known in the music world for having made copies of the ultra-rare Wu-Tang Clan record he previously owned before being convicted of fraud.