No ‘Chance in Hell’ Trump Will Pardon Diddy

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No one has been watching Sean “Diddy” Combs’s federal racketeering and sex-trafficking case closer than Texas plaintiff attorney Tony Buzbee. Buzbee has already filed more than 40 civil lawsuits against Diddy, and he said he’s nowhere close to being done. His firm is currently vetting 100 other cases against the music mogul, and he plans to file at least 80 more after Diddy’s criminal trial in Manhattan concludes.

As the prosecution comes close to wrapping up its case-in-chief after almost four weeks of testimony, Buzbee — who has been following the trial on X — answered a few key questions we had about the prosecution’s case: whether he thinks Diddy will take the stand, how a guilty or not guilty verdict might affect his civil cases, and whether he thinks there is a real possibility that President Trump might actually step in and pardon Combs if he is convicted.

What do you think of the prosecution’s case so far? 
These RICO [racketeering conspiracy] cases are very difficult to prove. You have to show predicate acts that are part of a conspiracy. The reason RICO was put into place is because it was very difficult to get the kingpin of a mob because you spend all your time prosecuting the underlings, and so they created RICO to make it so the U.S. attorney can impute acts of the subordinate to the alleged crime boss, and I don’t think people really understand that. You don’t prove a RICO case with one piece of evidence or one witness; you prove your case brick by brick, and they say a single brick doesn’t make a wall. I have been favorably pleased with the prosecution’s due diligence in doing this. I will say to the prosecution’s credit, man, they are laying it all out there. I think more and more people are actually paying attention. It’s shocking, it really is, some of the behavior that’s alleged and how this could have allegedly gone on.

Harvey Weinstein didn’t. Bill Cosby didn’t. But will Combs take the stand in his own defense?
I’m sure he wants to take the stand, and I just have this weird curiosity about what he has to say. The conventional wisdom is that he shouldn’t be anywhere near there. He’s got some really fine defense lawyers, and my  assumption is they’re giving him the same advice I would give him, which is, ‘Sorry, buddy — never gonna happen.’ If it were going to happen, then I can tell you what I would be doing if there was any possibility of him taking the stand — that he would be doing, you know, two hours a day after court of witness prep. It’s a very risky play, but again, I hope he does. That would be something that I would show up for for sure.

How will the verdict affect your pending civil cases? 
What has been alleged and what has been proven, at least in my book, already has solidified the civil cases. Obviously, if there’s a guilty finding, that will help our cases, but if there’s not, I don’t believe it hurts them. After the allegations in some of the civil cases came out, there were a lot of people who raised their eyebrows and were, like, That doesn’t sound plausible. But now, after we’ve heard some of the things that have been testified to, after Cassie [Ventura] testified, I think we all now see that the civil allegations made are strikingly similar to what’s being alleged and what’s being proved in the criminal case.

How different are Combs’s criminal charges from the civil allegations you have filed against him? 
It’s a different criminal standard. I don’t have to tell you how many times there have been criminal cases that have fallen apart but the civil case was still strong. I haven’t sued P. Diddy for RICO violations. I haven’t sued for sexual trafficking. I haven’t sued for travel across state lines to engage in prostitution. I’ve sued for basic straightforward civil assault, sexual battery, that sort of thing, and if you have followed this case closely and the facts that have come out in the case, I think it’s pretty clear that the allegations made by my clients are right in line with what has been proved in the federal criminal trial.

There was talk about one alleged victim who the prosecution couldn’t locate or was reluctant to testify. Why do you think people are still scared of Combs even though he has been in jail for the past nine months?
Just because you’re in jail doesn’t mean you don’t have people on the outside who you talk to. If what the prosecution alleged is true, that he’s controlling multiple people, I can understand why somebody might be fearful. I can tell you that many people who approached me said they were fearful, and whether it’s a rational fear or not, it’s fear. I quit counting the death threats I received through social media from the public. I mean, I don’t take any of them seriously, but here is a guy who is in prison that a federal judge has decided there’s enough damning evidence against him that he’s denied bail, which is highly unusual to be denied bail, but you have people who will defend him to the ends of the earth and will send death threats and threats to me and my children.

One key piece of evidence in the trial is the hotel security video of Combs assaulting Ventura in the hotel hallway. The jury has been shown that video repeatedly and will probably see it again in closing statements. Should they see it repeatedly? Or is there any downside risk to showing it to them repeatedly? 
They’ve played the video multiple times; you know the first time you see it, you’re like, What the fuck and whoa, and then, you know, you see it again, again, and again, and people can become immune to that, and it kind of becomes normalized, but that’s not normal behavior. That’s just not.

President Trump recently pardoned reality-TV stars Todd and Julie Chrisley, who were facing 7 to 12 years in jail. Trump has been photographed with Diddy in the past, and at a recent White House press conference he said people have been asking him if he would pardon Combs. Do you think that would happen?
I heard Trump’s answer, and knowing Trump, he’s very aware of what’s happening. He’s probably the most aware of current events of any person, certainly anybody of his age that I’ve ever met or seen. I don’t think there’s any chance in hell that Donald J. Trump pardons P. Diddy. He may have been sending it up the flagpole to see what the reaction was, and obviously it was a huge reaction and TMZ went nuts and everybody else went nuts, but I don’t ever see that happening.