On the last day of his presidency, Trump decided to grant a full pardon to Lil Wayne, who was among over 70 people to get a pardon from the president. In the lead-up to the election, Weezy endorsed Trump for president and co-signed his fabled "Platinum Plan," which promised to invest significant money into Black communities. While it has been suggested the move was a tactical decision in order to get a pardon, Wayne's lawyer has since suggested otherwise.
In an interview with the New York Times, South Florida lawyer Bradford Cohen spoke about how he helped set up Trump's meeting with Lil Wayne, and shot down the belief that his endorsement was a tactical decision. Wayne had been under investigation for a gun charge for around a year at the time of the meeting, but Cohen says that had no impact on the timing of the pre-election discussion between the two.
While he conceded that it likely meant that Trump had favored Wayne for a pardon, it was never the intention of Lil Wayne to do so. "It never hurts that someone gets a full understanding of an individual when they're just looking at a piece of paper," he said. "In hindsight, I guess it worked out." The charge Wayne was facing related to a Dec. 2019 arrest, in which he was caught transporting a gold-plated handgun on a plane trip from Los Angeles to Miami. He later pleaded guilty to the charges, and could have gone to prison for just under two years.
"I think they had a very strong connection," Cohen said of the two. "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." Wayne received a lot of criticism for his embrace of Trump, with fellow rappers among those to call him out.
