Joe Exotic must be feeling pretty left out right now.
Despite handing out a slew of pardons on his way out of office, the Tiger King star didn't make the cut. In the last days of Trump's presidency, Exotic's lawyers amped up their efforts to get their client a pardon, and even flew to D.C. for an allegedly "high-level" meeting. But alas, it seems their efforts were for naught. When reports suggested that Trump was set to issue 100 or so pardons on his final day in office, Exotic's team was reportedly confident that he would be among those to get one.
And based on a new report from TMZ, Exotic's team isn't thrilled that their client got snubbed by the outgoing POTUS.
"We are as disappointed that the President did not sign Joe’s pardon, as we were confident yesterday that he would," Joe Exotic's team told the outlet. All the way back in April 2020, Trump suggested that he would "take a look" at pardoning Exotic, who is serving 22 years in prison for two counts of hiring someone to murder Carole Baskin, and eight couts of violating the Lacey Act. The team was so confident that Exotic would be pardoned, in fact, that it rented stretch SUV limousine to wait outside Fort Worth's Federal Medical Center where he was being held.
"We’re confident enough we already have a limousine parked about half a mile from the prison. We are really in action mode right now," private investigator Eric Love, who has led Exotic's efforts to receive a pardon, told Metro.co.uk on Monday. "This time tomorrow, we're going to be celebrating. We have good reason to believe it will come through."
Baskin, meanwhile, is understandably quite happy regarding the lack of a pardon. "If I understand the notice I got from the prison system, he's already gotten another month added to his sentence by not obeying prison rules," told TMZ. "If Joe really had a change of heart, he could do what Mario Tabraue did to lessen his 100 year drug trafficking conviction to 12 years by turning state's evidence against the other animal exploiters."
See reactions to Trump's snub of Joe Exotic below.
