President Donald Trump has vowed to look at pardoning Joe Exotic, the star of the hit Netflix series ‘Tiger King’ who is serving 22 years behind bars in a federal prison for a murder-for-hire plot.
‘I’ll take a look,’ Trump said Wednesday at the White House, telling reporters that he had not seen the show, which has been a ratings hit as Americans stay at home through the coronavirus crisis.
On Monday on SiriusXM, Donald Trump Jr. had called Joe Exotic’s sentence ‘sort of aggressive‘ after watching the documentary series in two sittings.
BYPASS THE CENSORS
Sign up to get unfiltered news delivered straight to your inbox.
You can unsubscribe any time. By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use
‘Now, I don’t even know exactly what he was charged with … I watched the show, but it was like, I don’t know exactly what he was guilty of or wasn’t,’ Trump Jr. said.
‘It doesn’t seem like he was totally innocent of anything. But when they’re saying, “We’re putting this guy away for 30 years,” I’m saying that seems sort of aggressive.’
When a reporter brought up his son’s comments, Trump commented, ‘Which son? It must be Don. I had a feeling it was Don,‘ the president said.
DailyMail report: The show follows three main zoo owners including Exotic and Carole Baskin, the woman who owns Tampa, Florida’s Big Cat Rescue.
It was Baskin that Exotic allegedly was plotting to kill.
She had become a thorn in his side by pushing lawmakers to vote in favor of the Big Cat Public Safety Act, which would make it harder for individuals to own tigers and lions and would put an end to cub-petting, which was a business model used by Exotic.
In April 2019 Exotic, whose real name is Joseph Allen Maldonado-Passage, was convicted of two counts of murder-for-hire, eight violations of the Lacey Act and on nine violations of the Endangered Species Act.
‘I know nothing about it,’ Trump admitted, asking the reporter who posed the question, The New York Post’s Steven Nelson, to describe Exotic’s crimes.
Trump then said he’d “take a look.”
Since ‘Tiger King’ became a hit, Exotic and Baskin have become household names.
The show also details how Baskin’s first husband disappeared, a case that has been reopened by authorities since the airing of the episodes.
Exotic, on the show, claimed Baskin fed her husband to a Tiger.
