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3-Count Indictment Details Sean Diddy Combs Alleged Criminal Enterprise; Trump Back On The Campaign Trail After Apparent Assassination Attempt; Lebanon Pager Attack Was Joint Mossad-IDF Operation. Aired 4-4:30a ET
Aired September 18, 2024 - 04:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sean Combs led and participated in a racketeering conspiracy, including sex trafficking, forced labor, kidnapping, arson, bribery, and the obstruction of justice.
DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT, 2024 PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: President Biden, he's so, so nice. I'm so sorry about what happened
and all that. Kamala today, she could not have been nicer.
KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE U.S. (D) AND U.S. PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: In a democracy, there is no place for political violence.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: All new and existing teen accounts will be automatically set to private. Teen accounts will also be automatically set to sleep mode by default.
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ANNOUNCER: Live from London, this is CNN NEWSROOM with Max Foster and Christina Macfarlane.
MAX FOSTER, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, a warm welcome to our viewers joining us from the U.S. and around the world. I'm Max Foster.
CHRISTINA MACFARLANE, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Christina Macfarlane. It's Wednesday, September 18th, 9 a.m. here in London, 4 a.m. in Brooklyn, New York, where right now, music mogul Sean Diddy Combs is spending the night in a federal detention center.
FOSTER: In the coming hours, he'll return to court to face a damning three-count indictment. Prosecutors allege he ran a, quote, criminal enterprise and have charged Combs with racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking by force, fraud or coercion, and transportation to engage in prostitution.
MACFARLANE: Combs' sons were seen arriving at the courthouse on Tuesday, including his son Christian, who was accused of sexual assault in a lawsuit earlier this year. Sean Combs was also named in that lawsuit on allegations of liability and aiding and abetting. Here's what the U.S. attorney prosecuting the case had to say about the current indictment.
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DAMIAN WILLIAMS, U.S. ATTORNEY FOR SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK: Sean Combs led and participated in a racketeering conspiracy that used the business empire he controlled to carry out criminal activity, including sex trafficking, forced labor, kidnapping, arson, bribery and the obstruction of justice.
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FOSTER: Well, prosecutors allege Sean Combs, quote: ... engaged in a persistent and pervasive pattern of abuse towards women and other individuals, at times verbal, emotional, physical and sexual.
MACFARLANE: Combs is also accused of distributing narcotics, leveraging his financial support and using intimidation and violence.
FOSTER: CNN's Elizabeth Wagmeister has more details on the indictment.
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ELICABETH WAGMEISTER, CNN ENTERTAINMENT CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Sean Diddy Combs, one of music's biggest stars, ordered behind bars after pleading not guilty to a sweeping federal indictment charged with racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution. The grand jury indictment accuses the music mogul of running a criminal enterprise over decades.
WILLIAMS: Between at least 2008 and the present, Combs abused, threatened and coerced victims to fulfill his sexual desires, protect his reputation and conceal his conduct.
WAGMEISTER (voice-over): Combs was seen dining out in Manhattan Friday before his arrest on Monday night in New York.
According to the U.S. attorney prosecuting the case --
WILLIAMS: Combs allegedly planned and controlled the sex performances, which he called freak offs. And he often electronically recorded them.
WAGMEISTER (voice-over): Hotel surveillance footage obtained exclusively by CNN back in May appears to corroborate some of the allegations of abuse against the rapper now cited in the new indictment. The video captured on multiple cameras shows Combs wearing only a towel, assaulting his then girlfriend Cassie Ventura at a Los Angeles hotel in March 2016. Combs has repeatedly denied multiple allegations against him, saying that his accusers are looking for money. But he issued an apology for his conduct on the video only after it came to light.
SEAN DIDDY COMBS, MUSICIAN: My behavior on that video is inexcusable. I take full responsibility for my actions in that video. I'm disgusted. I was disgusted then. When I did it, I'm disgusted now.
WAGMEISTER (voice-over): His attorney responding. MARC AGNIFILO, ATTORNEY FOR SEAN DIDDY COMBS: He's going to fight this with all of his energy and all of his might and the full confidence of his lawyers.
We're appealing the decision to hold him without bail.
WAGMEISTER (voice-over): Combs faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years imprisonment and could face life in prison if convicted.
WILLIAMS: In addition to the violence, the indictment alleges that Combs threatened and coerced victims to get them to participate in the freak offs. He used the embarrassing and sensitive recordings he made of the freak offs as collateral against the victims.
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WAGMEISTER: The criminal charges come as Combs faces 10 civil suits, all filed over the last year, nine of which accused him of sexual assault. He has previously denied the accusations of abuse, saying: I did not do any of the awful things being alleged.
In March, authorities searched Combs' homes in Los Angeles and Miami as part of a months long federal investigation by a team that specializes in human trafficking crime that led to today's indictment.
Among the items seized, firearms, including three AR-15s, ammunition, more than 1,000 bottles of personal lubricants, such as baby oil, and video evidence of freak offs, according to the indictment.
WAGMEISTER: Now, Cassie, who is Diddy's ex-girlfriend, who was shown in that disturbing hotel surveillance footage, declined to comment on these new charges against Diddy. I reached out to her attorney, who says that they will not have anything to say about this indictment, but we have heard from some of the accusers and their attorneys.
Aubrey O'Day, who is a singer from the band Danity Kane, which is a band that Diddy formed on his MTV show, making the band, here's what she had to say.
Quote: I feel validated. Today is a win for women all over the world, not just me. Things are finally changing.
And Tyrone Blackburn, who is an attorney who represents three Diddy accusers who have filed civil suits against him, said that this was the first step for justice.
Quote: We knew this was coming. The evidence is very clear. And it was only a matter of time.
Back to you.
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MACFARLANE: As you saw in that report, CNN obtained video from 2016 showing Combs beating his then-girlfriend, singer Cassie Ventura. And she isn't named in the indictment, but Combs' attorney claims it stems from her accusations.
FOSTER: Speaking with CNN's Kaitlan Collins, he says while the video is embarrassing to his client, it's merely a glimpse into a toxic relationship, nothing to do with the current indictment.
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AGNIFILO: There was no criminal investigation. This was just a matter of personal embarrassment because he and the person in the video were in the midst of a 10-year relationship that was difficult at times. That was toxic at times. But it was mutually so. And this whole notion that Mr. Combs is forcing drugs on someone is just nonsensical. And it's going to prove to not be true.
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FOSTER: Embarrassment.
MACFARLANE: Combs was denied bail on Tuesday, a move his legal team is set to appeal. CNN legal analyst and criminal defense attorney Joe Jackson believes Combs' attorney will argue he hasn't been a threat to the community and also remind them that Combs willingly turned himself in.
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JOE JACKSON, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: What they're going to say is that, listen, he wasn't fleeing anywhere. Yes, he's well-resourced. Yes, he can go to anywhere really in the world if he wanted to. But he didn't. He came here to New York to fight the charges.
Number two, in addition to coming to New York, he offered to surrender. They chose it as prosecutors to get him at the hotel. Why? That was the indication that they were going to look to detain him, right, indefinitely until the case comes.
And number three, they'll argue that, yes, these are decades allegations in terms of 2008 to present. But what they will say is that, you know, he hasn't as of late been certainly a danger to the community. And these certainly are allegations.
Last point, and that's this. These are life changing allegations. Every indictment is. But there's also a forfeiture provision in here. So irrespective of whether he's detained or he's out, if he's convicted on this -- and it's an indictment, which is a mere allegation, this has to be proven in court to be clear. But if he's convicted, the government can forfeit everything from the criminal enterprise. That is his world.
That means the government could take everything and anything that was a result, right, of proceeds from who he is and what he does, entertainment or otherwise. So this could change his life as he knows it. And ultimately, that's going to depend upon whether the government proves the case beyond a reasonable doubt.
(END VIDEOTAPE) FOSTER: U.S. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is back on the campaign trail just days after an apparent assassination attempt at his Florida golf club.
MACFARLANE: The former president on Tuesday walked through the crowd of supporters in Flint, Michigan, shaking hands. And he spoke about the incident in West Palm Beach.
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DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT, 2024 PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: You know, only consequential presidents get shot at. When I say something like that, you have countries saying, this guy, but what can you do? You have to do, you have to do what you have to do, right? You have to -- we have to be brave. Otherwise, we're not going to have a country left.
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MACFARLANE: Well, Trump also commented on the calls he received from the U.S. president and vice president after the Florida incident.
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TRUMP: I want to be nice. He was so nice to me yesterday, but you know, in one way, I sort of wish the call wasn't made because I do feel he's so, so nice. I'm so sorry about what happened and all that, but I have to lay it out.
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We have very important, and the same with Kamala today. She could not have been nicer. But the fact is, the fact is, we have to have people that are respected by the opponent, by the other side, by other countries.
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FOSTER: Meanwhile, his Democratic rival attended an event hosted by the National Association of Black Journalists in Philadelphia. She answered questions on a wide range of issues and shared details about her call with Trump after Sunday's incident.
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KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE U.S. (D) AND U.S. PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: I checked on to see if he was OK. And I told him what I have said publicly. There is no place for political violence in our country. I am in this election and this race for many reasons, including to fight for our democracy. And in a democracy, there is no place for political violence.
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FOSTER: And with less than 50 days to go until the November election, the two presidential nominees focused on some of the key issues for voters, including the economy.
MACFARLANE: In Michigan, Trump talked about his support of tariffs and tried to make his case on why he's better on economic issues.
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TRUMP: Tariffs are the greatest thing ever invented. You know, I took in -- I took in $467 billion from China. Nobody else took in anything. And China's economy is not even doing that well.
We put a pretty good tariff on. It was going to be lifted at some point. Then we had COVID. We did a tremendous job in COVID. We gave you a stock market that was higher than just prior to COVID coming in. And we did a great job. We never got credit. We got credit for the best economy maybe ever. We got credit for having defeated ISIS and having rebuilt our military.
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MACFARLANE: Well, Kamala Harris has a different take. During her event in Philadelphia, the vice president explained how it was actually the current administration that turned the economy around after Donald Trump left office.
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HARRIS: We came in during the worst unemployment since the Great Depression. We came in during the worst public health epidemic in centuries. We came in after the worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War.
And a lot of it due in large part to the mismanagement by the former president as it relates to COVID and obviously January 6th. And we had then a lot of work to do to clean up a mess. As of today, we have created over 16 million new jobs, over 800,000 new manufacturing jobs. We have the lowest Black unemployment rate in generations.
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MACFARLANE: Well, meantime, Harris is running, mate. Tim Walz is slamming his Republican rival over the false claims that Haitian immigrants are eating pets in Springfield, Ohio.
FOSTER: During a stop in Asheville, North Carolina, Walz attacked J.D. Vance after the senator told CNN he was willing to create stories in defense of those claims.
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GOV. TIM WALZ, D-MN, U.S. VICE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: He got called out by a fair and free press that are a part of our democracy and fundamental to the freedoms of this country. They asked him if maybe it was an accident, he didn't mean it. No, he said, I admit it. I'm willing to create stories to spread fear to drum up support for us.
(END VIDEO CLIP) FOSTER: Well, Springfield schools are now back in session under heavy security, though, after being closed for days due to threats over the false pet-eating conspiracy. Ohio Governor Mike DeWine says the city has got dozens of bomb threats since last week's presidential debate when Donald Trump pushed the unfounded claims.
MACFARLANE: The governor visited an elementary school Tuesday with a state police therapy dog named Hope to bring students there some comfort. The head of Springfield's school system is hoping parents will send their children back to class.
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ROBERT HILL, SUPERINTENDENT, SPRINGFIELD CITY SCHOOL DISTRICT: Our attendance was down today. There is still a high level of fear due to these unfounded threats and hoaxes that have marred our existence, really, for going on a week now.
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FOSTER: Officials say the number of new threats is slowing and Springfield's mayor is calling for an end to the chaos.
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ROB RUE, SPRINGFIELD, OHIO MAYOR: We'd like those on the national stage that can bring peace, that can tamper their words and speak truth. That's what Springfield is asking. We need peace, we need help, not hate.
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FOSTER: U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken is in Egypt to discuss the ceasefire and hostage-release talks between Israel and Hamas. Blinken is meeting with the Egyptian president and that's today. His trip comes amid doubts that a deal will be reached before President Joe Biden leaves office.
MACFARLANE: And for the first time since the October 7th attacks, the top U.S. diplomat is visiting a Middle East without a stop in Israel.
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The EU's foreign affairs minister is urging all parties in the peace talks to put more pressure on Israel and Hamas to reach an agreement.
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JOSEP BORRELL, EUROPEAN UNION'S FOREIGN POLICY CHIEF: It is the political solution. If there is not a political project, the war is just a repetition one after another, always the same story. And this is what I think everybody that could do something has to do.
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MACFARLANE: Meanwhile, Israel has launched airstrikes on a refugee camp in central Gaza Tuesday morning. Residents searched desperately for their loved ones buried under the rubble.
FOSTER: A Gaza civil defense spokesperson said his teams in the area could hear, quote, screams of children coming from the crushed buildings. One survivor described the horrifying scene.
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MUMEN AWAD, EYEWITNESS (through translator): The house is full of people, more than 20 people. They are all under the rubble.
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MACFARLANE: Gaza's health ministry says at least 26 Palestinians were killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza on Tuesday. CNN is unable to confirm the numbers independently.
FOSTER: Still ahead, new details about the wave of pagers exploding nearly simultaneously across Lebanon. What we're learning about the devices and who's behind the unprecedented attack.
MACFARLANE: And later, countries across Europe battling floods and flames. We'll have the latest on the severe weather affecting the region.
FOSTER: Plus, federal authorities are searching the home of the man suspected in the apparent assassination attempt on Donald Trump. Coming up, why some who knew the suspect say he suffered from delusions of grandeur.
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FOSTER: The Middle East is again on edge after hundreds of pagers in Lebanon simultaneously exploded on Tuesday. The attack killed at least nine people, including an eight-year-old girl, and injured about 2,800 other people, many of them innocent civilians.
MACFARLANE: The Taiwanese company that manufactures the devices say they were made by a European distributor based in Hungary that had rights to use their brand name.
CNN has learned that Israel is behind the attack, which was a joint operation between Israel's intelligence service, the Mossad, and the Israeli military targeting Hezbollah militants.
FOSTER: The Lebanese government is blaming Israel, calling it a, quote, serious violation of Lebanese sovereignty. Israeli military officials held a situational assessment meeting on Tuesday evening following the blast. Schools in Lebanon will be closed today in the wake of the explosion.
CNN's Nick Payton Walsh has more on the attack. Again, a warning, the images in this report are graphic.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) NICK PATON WALSH, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): At the fruit display. At the checkout. In the street.
Hard to overstate the psychological impact of hundreds of blasts across Lebanon. Mostly in Hezbollah areas. Pagers exploding at about 3:30 according to the group. Security forces asking Lebanese to stay off the road so the sheer volume of emergency vehicles could get to hospital. Nearly 3,000 patients. At least 170 critical.
Easily the most widespread moment of violence to hit across Lebanon since the 2006 war with Israel, who Hezbollah is now firmly blaming for these new attacks on their TV channel.
We blame the Israeli enemy with full responsibility, the TV anchor said, for this criminal attack that also harms civilians.
Israel themselves declined to claim the attack.
To blame? Perhaps these tiny devices, according to posts on social media CNN can't verify. The race now to work out how. Was it just one type of device? A cyber attack? A battery bomb? Did they just hit Hezbollah areas?
It comes at yet another critical time. Monday, Israel's defense minister hinted, meeting the U.S. envoy, that the time for a diplomatic solution of how to get tens of thousands of Israelis home to the war-plagued north, but mostly past, than a military option is all that remains.
The hope had been for calm after the death of Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr, also killed in a violation of Hezbollah's stronghold in southern Beirut, led to great fury but minimal fire.
With Hezbollah's retaliation restrained, perhaps by pre-emptive Israeli strikes, many felt the moment of conflagration had passed. Now it seems back again, with Hezbollah once more under pressure to hit back hard. But only because another sophisticated attack has made them look weak.
Nick Paton Walsh, CNN, London.
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MACFARLANE: And authorities are obviously still grappling with how an attack of this nature could have been carried out.
Elliott Gotkine is joining us here now to discuss. And Elliott, this operation was extremely sophisticated. What more are we learning about how the pagers were detonated, where the origins of the pager came from?
ELLIOTT GOTKINE, JOURNALIST: So I mean, look, first of all, as you say, the sophistication, the scale and the audacity of this attack is quite mind-blowing and unprecedented. Now what we've learned is that this was a joint operation between the Israeli military and the foreign intelligence service, the Mossad. We know from the New York Times that what they seem to have been able
to do was to get some explosives inside these pagers next to the battery and also a switch which could then be detonated, which could then be activated remotely. And that's what set off the pagers and those images of explosions with people carrying those pagers that we've just been seeing.
What we also understand and what we've learned as well is that the pagers were under the brand name of Gold Apollo. Now this is a Taiwanese company, but the chairman and founder of that company says that these pagers were actually manufactured under license by a European distributor based in the Hungarian capital, Budapest.
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Now their relationship began with this distributor just distributing Gold Apollo's wares, but then subsequently they signed an agreement to manufacture using the Gold Apollo brand name these pagers, the model, the specific model in question being the AR-924 which is a model that the Taiwanese company doesn't manufacture itself.
So of course the big question is how and at what stage did those explosives get into the pagers?
Now they could have got in at the manufacturing stage or perhaps intercepted on their way to Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon. But what is clear is the devastating impact, the chaos that it's sown among the Iranian backed militia and of course the pressure that it's putting Lebanese hospitals under right now.
FOSTER: They've also managed to take out the communication system between Hezbollah members and there will be a lot of anger obviously amongst Hezbollah and they'll be talking about some sort of repercussions as would the Iranians.
GOTKINE: Not just the communications, because let's not forget that Hasan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah had said earlier this year that, you know, you should basically get rid of your cell phones, you should bury them. He doesn't use a cell phone himself. So they kind of went more analogue using these pagers thinking that that way they would be harder to hack which may well be the case, but the Israelis seem to have found a way, a workaround to get to them anyway. So yes, it will disrupt the communications, you've probably got a large number of fighters.
They were estimated to have about 100,000 fighters so even if all, you know, 2,800 or so of those injured or the majority were fighters, that's still, you know, a relatively small percentage of Hezbollah's overall military strength.
But no doubt this will have disrupted their communications, it will have sown chaos, it will have injured many fighters as well. And as you say, they are talking about retaliation.
Indeed, we've heard from Hezbollah in a statement on Tuesday evening saying that the criminal and treacherous enemy -- that's Israel from their perspective -- will definitely receive a fair punishment for this sinful assault both in ways that are expected and unexpected.
Now what could that retaliation entail? Well, it could include barrages of rockets, missiles and drones being fired at Israel en masse, perhaps together with other Iranian proxies, or perhaps they would go down the route that they did in the 90s.
And I recall the bombing of the Jewish Cultural Center in Argentina in 1994, the AMIA, and also the Israeli Embassy in that same city, Buenos Aires, two years earlier. We don't know what their retaliation will be, but one is most definitely expected.
FOSTER: Elliott, thank you.
MACFARLANE: Now ahead, in expanding investigation into the suspect and apparent assassination attempt on Donald Trump, what we're learning about his criminal record.
FOSTER: Plus, the record streak of triple digit temperatures in Phoenix, Arizona finally coming to an end, but not for long.
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