The music mogul Sean Combs wrote a letter to President Trump seeking a pardon, the president told The New York Times in an interview on Wednesday. Mr. Trump said he is not considering granting the request.
Mr. Trump also indicated that he had no intention of pardoning several other high-profile people, when presented by a Times reporter with names of some prominent inmates.
Those include Nicolás Maduro, the ousted leader of Venezuela who is facing charges for narco-terrorism and conspiring to import cocaine; Robert Menendez, the former senator from New Jersey who was found guilty in 2024 of trading his political influence for gold, cash and a Mercedes-Benz convertible; and Sam Bankman-Fried, the cryptocurrency entrepreneur who was convicted in 2023 of stealing billions of dollars from customers.
Mr. Trump was also asked about whether he would consider pardoning Derek Chauvin, a former Minneapolis police officer who was convicted of murdering George Floyd during a 2020 arrest, a case that spurred worldwide demonstrations for racial justice. Mr. Trump said: “I haven’t been asked about it.”
Mr. Menendez, Mr. Bankman-Fried, Mr. Chauvin or their supporters have sought clemency from Mr. Trump through public appeals or behind-the-scenes outreach involving the president’s allies.
Mr. Trump has used the unfettered presidential clemency power to reward allies and supporters who make arguments that echo his own unsubstantiated claims that he was unfairly prosecuted by a Justice Department that was weaponized for political ends by the administration of his predecessor, former President Joseph R. Biden Jr.
Mr. Trump last month pardoned former President Juan Orlando Hernández of Honduras, who was at the center of what the authorities had characterized as “one of the largest and most violent drug-trafficking conspiracies in the world.”
But when The Times asked Mr. Trump whether there was any scenario in which he would consider pardoning Mr. Maduro, who was also charged with drug trafficking-related offenses, the president said, “No, I don’t see that.”
Mr. Maduro pleaded not guilty to the federal charges.
Mr. Combs, 56, known as Puff Daddy or Diddy, was found guilty last year of prostitution-related charges and was sentenced to 50 months, or a little more than four years, in prison. His lawyers appealed the conviction and sentence last month, depicting the case as an unjust prosecution of sex between consenting adults and arguing that the judge had been unfair.
The details of Mr. Combs’s letter to Mr. Trump are not clear.
Mr. Trump told the Times reporters that Mr. Combs had “asked me for a pardon” and that the request came “through a letter.”
Asked when the letter was sent, Mr. Trump said “Oh, would you like to see that letter?”
He did not produce the letter, and he said he was not considering the pardon request.
Asked Thursday for a copy of the letter or a description of its contents, the White House referred to Mr. Trump’s comments.
Lawyers for Mr. Combs did not respond to a request for comment about the letter.
The existence of the letter has not been previously reported, though Mr. Trump had indicated in other remarks that Mr. Combs had asked for clemency, but that he was not inclined to grant it.
The pair knew each other socially before Mr. Trump ran for president, but the president has suggested that their relationship soured after Mr. Combs criticized his first presidency.
“I was very friendly with him. I got along with him great, and seemed like a nice guy,” Mr. Trump told the cable network Newsmax last year, adding “I didn’t know him well. But when I ran for office, he was very hostile.”
Mr. Trump indicated that Mr. Combs’s criticism makes a pardon “more difficult to do.”
Kenneth P. Vogel is based in Washington and investigates the intersection of money, politics and influence.
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