Prosecutors have shot down Sean “Diddy” Combs’s insistence that he should be afforded the same free speech rights as President-elect Donald Trump when the rap star tried again to be released on bail following his indictment on sex trafficking, racketeering and transportation for prostitution charges.
After Combs was accused of trying to influence jurors from jail in an orchestrated online and phone campaign through friends and family, his attorneys argued in a filing Monday that he should have the same rights Trump enjoyed when he badgered law enforcement officials publicly and online in the election interference case following the storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
The case against Trump, brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith is being dropped because there is no precedent for such an action against a sitting president.
Combs’s attorney cited the District of Columbia Appeals court decision in United States v. Trump last December in which the court ruled that the former president could only be constrained in his attacks in the case in the event of a “significant and imminent threat to the administration of criminal justice.”
The court ruled that Trump is “free to make statements criticizing the current administration, the Department of Justice, and the Special Counsel, as well as statements that this prosecution is politically motivated or that he is innocent of the charges against him.”
Combs’s attorneys argued that the “court should apply Trump’s heightened standard when considering” restricting their client’s speech.
But prosecutors in the Brooklyn case weren’t buying it.
In a response filed later Monday they argued that Trump’s judges “faced the unique task of balancing the right of a current candidate for the presidency to speak publicly about his charges against the public’s right to a fair trial.” They said that Combs’s communications “are not protected by the First Amendment.”
The defense team filing was in response to US District Court Judge Arun Subramanian, who last week asked both sides to explain if Combs’ public communications do or don’t constitute obstruction of justice.
Combs has already been denied bail twice. The judge said Friday that he would decide on his latest bail application sometime this week. Combs’s trial is set for May 5.
