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Sean "Diddy" Combs Appealing Judge's Decision To Deny Bail; Ex- Governors Urge Successors To Certify Election Results On Time; DOJ Seeks $100M From Owners Of Ship That Destroyed Baltimore Bridge. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired September 18, 2024 - 13:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

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[13:31:49]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Here in a few hours, a music mogul known for his lavish lifestyle is going to learn if a jail cell will be his new home while he's a criminal defendant.

That is where Sean "Diddy" Combs spent the night after a judge denied him bail yesterday. It happened at the same hearing where Combs pleaded not guilty to sorted out allegations of running a criminal enterprise that forced women into sex parties.

Today, Combs will go before a different judge to appeal that ruling denying him bail. And his lawyers have a new proposal that they hope gets him out of jail while the case plays out.

Let's go to CNN's Kara Scannell. She's outside the federal courthouse in New York.

Kara, tell us more about what could happen at this hearing.

KARA SCANNELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Sean "Diddy" Combs' attorneys are going to offer this new proposal that they put together following yesterday's hearing. They're asking the judge to release "Diddy" on a $50 million bond.

But here are the things that they've added that are needed. They're saying that they would restrict any female access to his residence, except for the mother of his children or family members.

That they would also restrict any visitors to visit him at his homes in Florida and Miami unless they are friends who are not co- conspirators in this case or family members.

And they're proposing he be contained in home detention with a GPS monitoring and have weekly drug testing.

And also maintain a visitor's logs that would the supplied to the Pretrial Services Unit so they could check every day to see who was coming to see him.

Now prosecutors are likely to object to this. They strenuously urged the magistrate court judge yesterday to keep Combs behind bars while he is awaiting trial.

Their arguments are that he is a flight risk, that they have a copious amount of evidence, some of it embarrassing to him, including dozens of video recordings of these drug-fueled sex parties that prosecutors say are at the heart of this sex trafficking case.

They also say that they have talked to 50 witnesses and victims who are prepared to provide testimony. So they're saying that this evidence is overwhelming.

Combs was a willing -- a good risk to flee the country and not face these charges.

They also say that he's a danger to some of these witnesses, pointing to the cache of weapons that they found in the closet of his bedroom and also his outreach to some witnesses in this case after they were subpoenaed by the grand jury.

So prosecutor has been argument against this. Ultimately, it will be up to the judge today to decide whether he is going to grant a bail to Sean Combs.

This judges the judge that is overseeing the trial. So now it is in the hands of the person who will take this case forward. Unlike yesterday's magistrate judge.

But that judge yesterday said that there were no conditions that she felt comfortable with in letting him out free on bail, saying that the crimes that he's accused of committing are crimes that are committed behind closed doors.

And there's really no amount of monitoring that would make her feel that that would not continue -- Brianna?

KEILAR: Very interesting. We'll be looking to see what happens.

Kara, thank you so much.

And, Boris, this jail is one that's known specifically for its poor conditions.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Yes, this is quite the change of pace for a mogul like "Diddy." Sean "Diddy" Combs is going from the comfy confines of his mansions in Miami Beach and Los Angeles to this, Brooklyn, New York's, Metropolitan Detention Center in a Special Housing Unit.

[13:35:05]

It's separate from the general prison population, housing inmates who require additional protection.

That puts "Diddy" alongside some notorious names, other high-profile individuals who, in the past, have been held there temporarily, R. Kelly, Sam Bankman-Fried, Ghislaine Maxwell. As you might imagine, for a multitude of reasons, "Diddy" would like to leave? And as you just heard there from Kara, his team is appealing the decision by a district judge to hold him without bail as he awaits trial.

But if that is denied, the bad-boy records founder would be held in that detention center for months, a place with a troubled history, to say the least.

And Combs' attorneys brought that history up in a letter to the judge, pointing out that other courts in that same district describe conditions there as horrific, not fit for pretrial detention.

They also refer to reports of a recent murder there. And in the past three years, four, four suicides.

And listen to this. A lawyer for one detainee who died from injuries sustained in a fight there, told "The New York Times" that facility is, quote, "an overcrowded, understaffed and neglected federal jail that is hell on earth."

That's part of the reason why his attorneys have argued that Combs is not a flight risk, that he's not a danger to anyone in the community. They point out that his passport has already been detained.

They propose putting Combs in home detention with a $50 million bond secured by this Miami Beach mansion, the one that we all saw get rated earlier this year.

Prosecutors say that is simply insufficient. They point two previous public statements he's made that turned out to be false.

They argue that "Diddy" remains a flight risk even without his passport because he's well-connected with the, quote, "money, manpower and tolls to do it quickly and without detention."

We're going to find out how a judge sees it later this afternoon in a Manhattan courtroom.

That's the button I was supposed to hit.

Still to come, a bipartisan group of former governors is trying to avoid a repeat of 2020's election chaos. They're urging states to certify their elections by the deadline. We're going to speak to two of them about their concerns when we come back.

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[13:41:50]

KEILAR: Forty-eight days to the election, but who's counting? And there's growing concern that if former President Trump loses again, he could pressure state officials to un-do or delay certification of their results.

That was the case in 2020 in the key states of Georgia and Arizona. But now nearly 20 former governors from both parties have come

together urging their successors to certify the results and to reject any request to delay the process.

We're joined by two of them, George Allen, the former governor of Virginia, and Scott McCallum, the former governor of Wisconsin.

Thank you so much to both of you for joining us.

You are, of course, both Republicans, both from states that lie on the very interesting end of the battleground spectrum. And it was Republican governors, as I mentioned, in key states, who've got that pressure from Trump in 2020.

Governor McCallum, what are you worried could happen this time?

SCOTT MCCALLUM, (R), FORMER WISCONSIN GOVERNOR: Not necessarily a worry. It's the measure that we have been supporting.

And sent a letter to present governors is a change in the process for the electors. And we want to make sure everybody is fully aware that the process has been streamlined. So there are issues, they ought to be dealt with rapidly.

KEILAR: Governor Allen, why did you think it was necessary to get on the record with successors?

GOVERNOR GEORGE ALLEN, (R), FORMER VIRGINIA GOVERNOR: Well, first and foremost, we wanted to respect the will of the people as represented by the electors selected by the candidate who wins the most votes in each respective state.

I know and understand that this is, after 2020, there's a focus on President Trump after what happened in that election and the awful riots on January 6th.

However, I could envision some Democrats also who have tried to keep Trump off the ballots in their states that could pressure Democratic Party governors to thwart the will of the voters in their states.

And there are still Democrats who are grousing about the results in 2000 and 2016. I even heard on CNN a few nights ago, someone complaining about the vote in Florida back in 2000.

So this is bipartisan. We want to make sure governors do their duty. The way that Governor Kemp in Georgia and Governor Ducey in Arizona did in the last election.

Respect the will of the people who select the electors who then represent the electoral votes of each state, and doing it in a timely manner, by December 11t h -- is when the certificate of ascertainment is sent.

And then on the 17th of December is when the Electoral College meets and the delegates or the electors from each state meet and reflect the will of the people in each state. KEILAR: OK. And I hear what you're saying, Governor Allen, that this is something for all governors, whatever their political stripes.

But the most recent example that we have does have to do with former President Trump. And he is on the ballot again.

You, along with Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin, spoke at Trump's June rally in Chesapeake, Virginia.

[13:45:03]

So can you explain sort of how you square that, supporting a candidate even as you warn against succumbing to the kind of pressure that he has exerted on governors?

ALLEN: Well, I think Mike Pence, as vice president, upheld his oath of office. And I very much admire what Mike Pence did.

Do I agree with Donald Trump on every issue? No, I do not. I do like his tax policies, his energy policies, no mandates that we have to drive E.V. cars and so forth. There's other things that I don't agree with them on.

So the point is elections are about choices. And there's rare, rare times that you can find something you agree with on everything.

The point of all of this, Brianna, though, is to respect the -- the owners of the government, the people, the voters' wishes.

And when I was governor, Bob Dole won Virginia, but Bill Clinton won. But I'm met with our alleged -- our delegation, electors in our state capital, as every state capital have their electors.

And the governor needs to do his or her duty responsibly in reflecting the will of the people in our republic.

KEILAR: And Governor McCallum, what kind of feedback are you getting?

(CROSSTALK)

KEILAR: Yes, sorry. Go on.

MCCALLUM: Yes. No, the point is, I don't -- when you tried to drive, whether it's Republican or Democrat, we are saying this is not political.

This is a type of thing, if you support democracy and want to trust elections, that we're going to work together to make sure the system is transparent and that there's trust in the system.

So when we start to get into things in the past, we're really starting to divide again. And governors have come together to say we will work together to build a trust in democracy.

KEILAR: What kind of feedback are you getting, if you've gotten any so far, Governor McCallum, from current governors? MCCALLUM: Well, it's -- I will say I'm working with Wisconsin Alliance for Civic Trust right now, which is targeting six states that had been swing states. So it's the Carter Foundation that's been working democracy.

And I can't speak as much for other governors as I can in Wisconsin, which, of course, was one of the states at issue.

People want the system to work. And they expect the leadership to work this out. And having trust in system. So it is incumbent upon us to create that transparency, to share how the system does work, and to build the faith in it.

And at the same time, there are ways to resolve issues. And I know what we're working on in Wisconsin is to make sure that if there is an issue, we can address it right away, and find out what are conspiracy theories and what is really happening.

And there are going to be mistakes. There always are in elections. But what we want to do is prevent fraud.

KEILAR: Governors George Allen and Scott McCallum, we are paying a lot of attention to this bipartisan effort. And we really appreciate you joining us to talk about it. Thank you.

ALLEN: Thank you, Brianna.

MCCALLUM: Thank you.

[13:48:20]

And the Justice Department saying the owners of that container ship that brought down a major Baltimore bridge cut corners to keep the ship in service. We'll have details on the government's new lawsuit and whether criminal charges could be coming next.

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[13:53:17]

SANCHEZ: The Justice Department isn't pulling its punches in a new lawsuit over the Baltimore bridge collapse.

It wants the owners of the cargo ship responsible to pay more than $100 million. But the DOJ is new court filing goes beyond the cost, blasting the owners for a tragedy that it calls "entirely avoidable."

CNN's Gabe Cohen has been following this story for us.

Gabe, what else does the lawsuit say?

GABE COHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, so, Boris, this really lays out stunning new allegations of really extraordinary negligence that the Department of Justice says was caused by the owner and operator of the "Dali" ship.

Saying that, essentially, the companies had knowingly allowed this ship that was not sea-worthy to wander into U.S. waterways.

What it points back to is that -- is that the ship had been dealing with excessive vibrations for a long-time. Vibrations on the ship that had caused electrical issues, mechanical issues.

And those are the same troubles, according to Department of Justice, that ended up causing that power outage on that March morning that led to that catastrophic series of failures. Backup systems didn't work. Even the anchor wouldn't drop quickly when the pilot called for it.

I want to play a clip. This is justice -- or excuse me, an official from the Justice Department explaining what went wrong on a call a little bit earlier today.

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CHETAN PATIL, ACTING DEPUTY ASSISTANT AG, CIVIL DIVISION: The evidence shows that excessive vibration was a long-standing problem on the ship, which Grace Ocean and Synergy sought to remedy with makeshift aftermarket fixes that fell well short of appropriate standards.

When this transformer failed, the power should have automatically shifted to another transformer almost immediately. But for longstanding practice, this automation had been recklessly disabled, which lead to excessive delay in regaining power.

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[13:55:05]

COHEN: And what they're accusing these companies of doing is, essentially, jury rigging this ship with Band-Aid solutions.

We have photos that the Department of Justice provided, a couple of photos of a welded-together bracket on a transformer that had been cracked by those vibrations. Yes, that's it right there.

As well as that hook that had been welded together, jammed between the transformer and a steel beam.

So essentially, saying they didn't want to deal with the problem. They just put these Band-Aid solutions on.

We're still waiting to find out if they're going to be potentially criminal charges. We know that eight of those crew members are still in Baltimore as these investigations have been playing out. This again, a civil claim. At least $100 million.

And look, it's just the beginning for these companies who are facing similar claims from the state, the city of Baltimore, as well as the families of those six construction workers who died.

SANCHEZ: I'm, obviously, no expert but that, that does not look good.

Gabe Cohen, thanks so much for the update.

We're moments away from the Federal Reserve decision that marks a milestone for the U.S. economy.

Stay with CNN. We're back in just a few minutes.

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