Donald Trump isn’t saying no to a potential pardon for Sean “Diddy” Combs, but he made it clear their past tension might stand in the way.
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During a recent press event, Trump was asked directly if he would consider pardoning the Bad Boy mogul. His response? Complicated.
“Well, he was essentially, I guess, sort of half innocent,” Trump said, leaving reporters puzzled. “I don’t know what they do. He’s still in jail or something?”
Trump went on to say that he and Diddy had a cordial relationship years ago, but that all changed once he entered the political arena.
“He was very hostile. He said some not-so-nice things about me,” Trump recalled. “It’s hard, you know—we’re human beings, right? And we don’t like to have things cloud our judgment.”
Trump admitted that Diddy’s past criticism made things “more difficult” when it came to the idea of a pardon, even though he described Diddy as someone who “seemed like a nice guy.”
For Trump, the decision to pardon may ultimately come down to personal feelings as much as legal arguments.
“I’m being honest,” Trump said. “It makes it more difficult to do. But more like—I would say so.”
While he didn’t close the door completely, Trump’s remarks suggest that personal history still plays a major role in presidential forgiveness, and Diddy’s past jabs may be coming back to haunt him.
If Diddy wants a pardon it’s going to cost him – a million bucks should do it,