With the kind of year it's been, it would come as little shock that the US President would pardon a guy from a Netflix documentary everyone watched at the start of lockdown.
ABC News is reporting that Donald Trump is currently preparing a shortlist of pardons before he leaves office, and among the list of those expected to walk away from prison sentences is Joe Exotic, real name Joseph Allen Maldonado-Passage.
According to an anonymous source, Joe Exotic called the White House numerous times, "some insane". Exotic's lawyer, the also-imaginatively named Eric Love, said that they are "waiting on the pen to hit the paper" and that they believe they're "very, very close" to securing a pardon for Exotic.
Exotic is currently doing 22 years in prison for, among other things, attempting to hire an undercover FBI agent to murder Carole Baskin. It's understood Donald Trump first heard about Joe Exotic after a journalist brought up the story during a press conference, with Trump saying then that they'd look into it.
Already, Trump has pardoned his former National Security Adviser, Michael Flynn, for making false statements to the FBI, political henchman Roger Stone for witness tampering, obstructing an official proceeding, and five counts of making false statements, and is understood to be attempting to find ways to preemptively pardon himself for crimes he may or may not have carried out while in office.
