Chrisley

Convicted music mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs looked to the White House for major relief amid his legal saga, President Trump says.

“I have a lot of people asking for pardons,” Trump said Monday as reporters pressed him about whether he will pardon Ghislaine Maxwell, the imprisoned former girlfriend of Jeffrey Epstein. Trump went on to name-drop Combs, using one of his former stage names.

“I call him Puff Daddy, he’s asked me for a pardon,” he continued. A representative for Combs did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but reports about a potential pardon for the Bad Boys Records founder and former Cîroc alcohol entrepreneur first surfaced months ago.

Combs, also formerly known as “Puffy,” “P. Diddy” and “Love,” was convicted in July in his high-profile federal criminal case, in which he was accused of sexually assaulting numerous women. Jurors found Combs guilty on two prostitution-related charges but cleared him of the most serious: racketeering and sex trafficking.

A month after the verdict, CNN reported that Combs’ legal team had reached out to the Trump administration to clear his name. “It’s my understanding that we’ve reached out and had conversations in reference to a pardon,” attorney Nicole Westmoreland told the outlet at the time. Days later, the New York Post reported otherwise, with Combs’ lead attorney Marc Agnifilo disputing Westmoreland’s claim.

Earlier this year, Trump also issued pardons for rapper NBA YoungBoy and “Chrisley Knows Best” reality stars Todd and Julie Chrisley, among others.

Combs was sentenced Friday to more than four years in federal prison for transporting prostitutes across state lines for drug-fueled sex performances he dubbed “freak-offs.” The rapper’s legal team on Monday requested he carry out his sentence at FCI Fort Dix, a low-security federal prison in New Jersey. This will allow Combs “to address drug abuse issues and to maximize family visitation and rehabilitative efforts,” lawyer Teny Geragos wrote.

Meanwhile, as Combs prepares for time behind bars, 50 Cent is making it abundantly clear he’s going to make the most out of his rap foe’s sentence. Over the weekend, the “Candy Shop” musician poked fun at an upcoming speaking engagement that Combs had scheduled before his sentencing, joking that he’s open to take the spot.

50 Cent, real name Curtis Jackson, also reacted on Trump’s latest pardon comment, of course. “Man you can’t get No pardon running ya mouth like that,” he wrote on Instagram. “LOL Get Out of here.”

Times staff writer Richard Winton and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

Julie and Todd Chrisley were not exactly prepared to learn they had been pardoned by the president.

“Unfortunately, most of the news that you get in prison is bad news,” Julie Chrisley told Lara Trump in a family interview set to air Saturday on Fox News Channel. So when she got the good news, her fellow inmates didn’t immediately understand what they were seeing.

“They’re like, ‘Are you OK?’” Julie said.

In fact, she hadn’t been 100% OK when she first heard from daughter Savannah that President Trump had signed off on the creme de la creme of get-out-of-jail-free cards.

“I just busted out crying” when her daughter broke the news, Julie said. “Everyone was looking around, and then I just hung up. I was so nervous that I just hung up.”

Savannah was the one who appealed to the president to free her parents. During the Republican National Convention, she gave a speech about the “rogue prosecutors” who put her parents behind bars.

At least Julie hung up on her daughter and not POTUS. But now the folks around her were asking her if she was OK. “I’m like, ‘I am!’” she said, grasping her husband and daughter’s hands as she recalled the moment. “I’m getting out of here!”

Julie and husband Todd, the Georgia couple who gained fame through “Chrisley Knows Best,” the USA Network series that showcased their luxurious lifestyle and zany family dynamic, were back in their bleach-blond glory sitting with two of their five kids, Savannah and son Chase, on Lara Trump’s couch.

There had been no hair color for the inmates after they were sentenced to 12 years (him) and seven years (her) for tax evasion, conspiracy and wire fraud. He was sent to a federal prison in Pensacola, Fla., while she was doing time in Lexington, Ky. Probation after incarceration awaited them both. The pardons changed all that.

Todd Chrisley was a little cooler than his wife had been when the news came his way. He was walking through FPC Pensacola when someone stopped him and told him he just got pardoned.

“I said, ‘Yeah, OK’ and I just went right on walking,” apparently dismissing what he’d just heard as trash talk. He walked all the way back to his dorm, only to have a corrections officer come by soon after and ask him if he was “good.”

“I said, ‘As good as I can be,’” he told Lara Trump with a little snark in his delivery. But the CO was serious.

The officer told the reality star that he had been pardoned and that he’d been sent to check on Chrisley to make sure he was OK.

Todd recalled saying, “They don’t need to be worried about me now! If I’m pardoned, I’m great!”

The Chrisley patriarch also shared how it felt when he saw wife Julie for the first time in 28 months.

“When I hugged her the first time, it was like I was home. … We have changed,” he said. “And if we did not change in these 28 months, it would have been wasted.”

Todd gave it up to the Almighty as well. “God touched President Trump’s heart,” he said. “God led the people to advocate for us. And so I’m grateful, because every night I would pray that God would return me home to my children. And he did that, so I’m grateful.”

Both Chrisleys have said they intend to advocate in the future for prisoners who are still behind bars.

“My View With Lara Trump,” which includes her full interview with Todd, Julie, Savannah and Chase Chrisley, airs Saturday at 6 p.m. local time (9 p.m. Eastern) on Fox News Channel.

May 27 (UPI) — President Donald Trump is set to pardon Todd and Julie Chrisley, former television stars serving lengthy prison terms after being found guilty of conspiring to defraud banks and committing tax evasion.

The couple gained fame in the United States through their Chrisley Knows Best reality show in which they flaunted their wealth. They were found guilty in 2022 of manipulating financial records to make it appear as if they were wealthier than they really were, when applying for more than $30 million in loans from 2007 to 2012.

They received a combined 19-year prison sentence, with Todd Chrisley to serve 12 years in prison and Julie Chrisley sentenced to serve seven. Both sentences came with three years’ supervised release.

Trump, a former reality star, is expected to grant the couple the latest presidential pardons of his second administration.

In a video excerpt published on X by a White House aide of a phone call Tuesday between Trump and the jailed couple’s adult children, the president is heard stating, “your parents are going to be free and clean, and I hope we can do that by tomorrow.”

“I don’t know them, but give them my regards and wish them a good life.”

“Mr. President, I just want to say thank you for bringing my parents back,” Grayson Chrisley is heard responding.

“Yeah, well, they were given a pretty harsh treatment from what I’m hearing,” Trump replied.

Margo Martin, the White House aide who published the clip online, said in the caption that Trump will be granting them “full pardons.”

“Trump Knows Best!” she added.

The Conservative Political Action Conference said in a statement that it “appreciates” Trump’s pardoning of Todd and Julie Chrisley, the parents of its Nolan Center for Justice senior fellow, Savannah Chrisley, who was on the phone call Tuesday with Trump.

“The Chrisleys were targeted by weaponized prosecutors who abused the power granted to them by our criminal justice system,” CPAC said in a statement.

“Thank you to President Trump for restoring order and integrity to the justice system.”

According to prosecutors, the Chrisleys, who were found guilty in June 2022, spent money they defrauded from banks to purchase luxury cars, real estate and travel and then used new fraudulent loans to pay off the old loans.

Todd Chrisley filed for bankruptcy and walked away from $20 million in debt. On top of the conspiracy to defraud banks, they were found guilty of conspiring to defraud the Internal Revenue Service. Julie Chrisley was also found guilty of wire fraud and obstruction of justice.

Since returning to the White House in January, Trump has used his executive powers to punish political adversaries with executive orders and to seemingly reward convicted friends, supporters and donors with presidential pardons.

On Monday, Trump pardoned disgraced former Virginia sheriff Scott Jenkins who was sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment after a federal court found he accepted tens of thousands of dollars in bribes to appoint local businessmen as auxiliary deputy sheriffs. The president described Jenkins as being a victim of a “corrupt and weaponized Biden” Department of Justice.

Last month, Trump pardoned Paul Walczak, a former nursing home executive who was sentenced to 18 months in jail for tax crimes and whose mother had raised millions for the New York real estate mogul’s campaigns.

In March, he also pardoned Devon Archer, a former business associate of Hunter Biden who was sentenced to a year and a day in prison in 2022 for a scheme to defraud a Native American community. However, he testified against the Biden family during the Republicans’ failed investigation to try and impeach former President Joe Biden.

“Chrisley Knows Best” reality TV stars Todd Chrisley and Julie Chrisley may soon leave life in federal prison behind, thanks to President Trump.

The White House announced Tuesday that the president was set to pardon the imprisoned reality TV personalities nearly three years after they were convicted in 2022 of tax evasion and bank fraud. The Georgia couple gained popularity for their USA Network series, which showcased their luxurious lifestyle and zany family dynamic.

The White House posted a video of Trump on the phone with Todd and Julie’s 27-year-old daughter, Savannah Chrisley, who has publicly decried her parents’ conviction and the toll it has taken on their family. He called the younger Chrisley, who also starred in “Chrisley Knows Best,” “to inform her that he will be granting full pardons to her parents.”

“Trump Knows Best,” the tweet said.

A legal representative for the Chrisleys did not immediately respond to The Times’ request for comment on Tuesday.

A federal grand jury in Atlanta indicted the Chrisley parents on several charges including tax evasion, conspiracy and wire fraud. Prosecutors alleged the charges stemmed from a scheme, which lasted from 2007 to 2012, that involved the stars submitting fake financial statements to financial institutions to get loans worth millions of dollars. A second indictment was filed in February, and Todd, 56, and Julie Chrisley, 52, were convicted on all charges in June 2022.

In November of that year, the reality TV stars were sentenced to prison: Todd was sentenced to 12 years in federal prison and Julie received seven years. They also received 16 months probation each. In September 2024, Julie Chrisley was resentenced, but a federal judge upheld her seven-year sentence.

Since her parents’ convictions, Savannah has spoken out, strongly challenging the verdict. Over the years, she has alleged corruption in the court proceedings, described the alleged “nightmare” conditions of her parents’ prison facilities and touted plans to appeal their convictions — airing her grievances and hopes on her “Unlocked” podcast, “The Masked Singer” and even at the Republican National Convention in July, where she threw her support behind Trump. During the political event, she alleged her family “was persecuted by rogue prosecutors in Fulton County due to our public profile … and our conservative beliefs.”

“Donald J. Trump has only one conviction that matters, and that is his conviction to make America great again,” she added elsewhere in her RNC address.

On Tuesday, Savannah brought news of Trump’s intentions to pardon her parents to Instagram. Wearing a white and gold MAGA hat, Savannah shared her side of her call with President Trump.

“I have shed so many tears. The president called me personally as I was walking into Sam’s Club and notified me that he was signing … pardon paper[s] for both of my parents,” she said. “So both my parents are coming home tonight or tomorrow. I still don’t believe it’s real.

“The fact that the president called me — I will forever be grateful for President Trump, his administration and everyone along the way,” she said, adding later in her video she “vows” to stand alongside Trump and continue to expose “corruption.”