Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs’ lead attorney Marc Agnifilo has disputed his legal teammates’ claims that they’ve reached out to Donald Trump‘s administration for a potential pardon.
Yesterday (August 7), a member of Combs’ legal team had confirmed they had reached out to the White House to ask President Trump to grant Diddy a pardon.
The disgraced music mogul was found guilty on two counts of transportation for engaging in prostitution, but was acquitted of racketeering and sex trafficking in July, and pleaded not guilty to all five charges.
Now, Agnifilo has refuted lawyer Nicole Westmoreland’s comments, telling CBS News that despite leading Diddy’s legal team, he knows nothing of the pardon request: “I have nothing to do with a possible pardon.”
“I have had conversations with nobody. I have not spoken to the president. I have not spoken to anybody who speaks to the president about Sean Combs. I have not.”
Agnifilo also told CBS that he had not discussed a pardon with Diddy, except to tell his client what was in the news: “He says, ‘Go tell him (Mr. Trump) that I need a pardon. Go tell him I deserve a pardon.’ That’s what he said.”
A senior official in Trump’s administration declined to comment on the matter to CBS, but told the news outlet that any decision on the topic would come directly from the President.
Trump has speculated openly about a potential pardon. Back in June, he said that he would look into a potential pardon for Combs, and that he would “certainly look at the facts”. Last week, he weighed in again, calling Combs “half-innocent” and saying it’s “more likely a no” that he would be pardoned.
Trump went on to recall that he was “very friendly with him” previously and they had gotten along “great”, although he added that he “didn’t know him well”. He continued: “When I ran for office, he was very hostile. It’s hard, you know? We’re human beings. And we don’t like to have things cloud our judgment, right? But when you knew someone and you were fine, and then you run for office, and he made some terrible statements. So I don’t know …. it makes it more difficult to do.”
He was likely referencing comments Combs made to Charlamagne tha God in 2020, when he said, “White men like Trump need to be banished. That way of thinking is real dangerous. This man literally threatened the lives of us and our families about going to vote … The number one priority is to get Trump out of office.”
Trump’s second term has already seen him issue a slew on controversial pardons, including to over a thousand January 6 rioters, former chief strategist Steve Bannon and former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich.
As noted by Billboard, he has also issued pardons or commutations for a number of rappers including NBA YoungBoy, Death Row Records co-founder Michael “Harry-O” Harris, and in his first term, Lil Wayne and Kodak Black.
Late last month (July 29), Diddy asked a judge to release him on a $50million (£37.4million) bond as he waits to be sentenced in October, but was denied bail after US District Judge Arun Subramanian said that he had failed to prove there were any “exceptional” reasons as to why he should be released ahead sentencing.
