Trump 'considering last-minute pardons for rappers Lil Wayne and Kodak Black the DAY BEFORE he leaves office'
PRESIDENT Donald Trump is reportedly considering pardons for rappers Lil Wayne and Kodak Black the day before he departs the White House.
The rappers are in a list of people Trump hopes to pardon on Jan. 19, the day prior to Inauguration Day, people with knowledge on the matter told Bloomberg on Thursday.
Last month, Wayne pled guilty in federal district court for illegally possessing a loaded, gold-plated handgun while on board a private plane heading for Florida in 2019.
Wayne, who posed with Trump during his presidential campaign and praised him before the election, could face up to a decade in jail.
His sentencing hearing is set for Jan. 28.
The rapper was previously convicted of criminal possession of a weapon and has served eight months in prison in New York.
Meanwhile, Kodak Black was sentenced to 48 months in prison on federal weapons charges in 2019.
He confessed to lying about purchasing several firearms in background check forms.
Police later found two firearms linked to the rapper at crime scenes.
One of the weapons had Kodak Black’s fingerprints and a live round used to attack a rival rapper, The New York Times reported.
Kodak Black tweeted that he would donate $1million to charity if Trump pardoned him, but has since deleted the post.
Rappers Lil Pump and Lil Yachty and Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson are among celebrities who have called on Trump to pardon Kodak Black.
Kodak Black has retweeted numerous calls to Trump to commute his sentence.
Lil Wayne has not tweeted recently about his possible pardon, but on New Year’s Eve wrote that “2020 was shady as a tree but under it was a gift of better days 2 come.”
Trump’s pardon list is being vetted by senior advisers and White House Counsel Pat Cipollone is managing parts of process, sources told Bloomberg.
The president’s lawyers are worried that the pardons could subject Trump administration officials to new claims of obstruction of justice.
Trump’s pardon list reportedly also includes senior White House officials, family members and himself.
Some of the planned pardons have already been run through the legal process, the sources said, but the self-pardon requires more vetting.
That suggests that the path to pardons for Lil Wayne and Black Kodak may be clearer than the one for the president.
No president has pardoned himself in the past.
In late December, Trump pardoned more than two dozen people, including his son-in-law Jared Kushner’s father and his allies convicted in special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe.
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