Donald Trump is Going to Pardon Ghislaine Maxwell, Diddy, and George Santos.
This is likely the worst timeline imaginable.
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In one of the most horrific examples of a Nightmare Blunt Rotation imaginable, it’s looking increasingly likely that Donald Trump is going to drop a #pardonbomb on the three worst people imaginable: convicted sex pest Sean “Diddy” Combs, disgraced ex-Congressman and convicted fraudster George Santos, and convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. Possibly even on the same day.
You may have noticed a lot of seemingly unrelated news dropping all at the same time over the past few weeks. On August 4, Christopher Wiggins for Advocate reported that Donald Trump said he had “the right” to pardon George Santos, but “nobody’s asked.” Incidentally, within a few hours, it was reported that Marjorie Taylor Greene had sent a formal letter to the Department of Justice, requesting that Trump grant Santos clemency for his crimes.
And just one week prior, on July 29, Dominic Patten reported for Deadline that Trump was “seriously considering” pardoning Diddy. Insiders told Patten that this wasn’t just a small murmur being made at the White House, but it had evolved from “just another Trump weave to an actionable event.” Trump later said pardoning him would be “hard” because of Diddy’s very public hatred of Trump’s presidency, all while conceding that Diddy had been found “half-innocent.”
Which leads to what John Mac Ghlionn at The Hill refers to as what will become Donald Trump’s “defining moment” in office: the pardon of Ghislaine Maxwell, a convicted sex trafficker and friend of Trump’s. This has seen more press coverage and speculation than either of the other two on account of Donald Trump’s connection to Jeffrey Epstein, the deceased co-conspirator in the sex trafficking operation and former best friend of Donald Trump.
Like Diddy, Trump has stated that it is his “right” to pardon Maxwell should he please. Yet the very strongly rumored pardon, coming off of Maxwell getting moved into a federal prison camp so posh it’s been nicknamed “Club Fed,” has sparked backlash not only from Democrats and some of his base, but from the survivors of Epstein and Maxwell’s trafficking and their families. The most reported example, of course, being the family of Epstein whistleblower Virginia Giuffre, who have literally BEGGED Trump to not pardon the woman who trafficked their now-deceased sister.
“The government and the president should never consider giving Ghislaine Maxwell any leniency,” Giuffre’s family said in a statement. “Ghislaine Maxwell is a monster who deserves to rot in prison for the rest of her life for the extraordinary violence and abuse she put not just our sister Virginia through, but many other survivors, who may number in the thousands.”
I think today might be as good of a day as any to remind people why it would be a complete travesty for any and all of these people to be pardoned. What were they convicted of? What does Trump look to gain from pardoning them? And what is the most likely outcome from him pardoning them?
