In the final hours of his presidency, Donald Trump issued a slew of last-minute pardons, including one for Lil Wayne.
The rapper, born Dwayne Michael Carter Jr, pleaded guilty in December to possessing a loaded weapon on a private jet while traveling to Miami. Carter is a convicted felon, stemming from a gun charge in 2007, which meant he was facing 10 years in prison at his Jan. 28 sentencing.
Ahead of the 2020 presidential election, Wayne endorsed Trump for President and co-signed his “Platinum Plan” for the Black community, which led skeptics to believe it was all a tactic to receive a pardon.
South Florida lawyer Bradford Cohen, who helped set up Trump’s meeting with Lil Wayne back in October, denied the speculation in an interview with the New York Times, adding that the rapper’s support likely caused the former President to favor him. “It never hurts that someone gets a full understanding of an individual when they’re just looking at a piece of paper,” Cohen said. “In hindsight, I guess it worked out.”
“I think they had a very strong connection,” he added of the unlikely duo. “He’s in the entertainment world. He’s got a style that’s similar in terms of the way that he carries himself, and a lot of rappers and people in the industry relate to that.”
