Sean “Diddy” Combs is using the “But Donald Trump” defense in his latest bid for a bail release in time for Thanksgiving.
Combs’ lawyers have already tried several times to get the incarcerated ex-mogul out on bail. But when prosecutors argued against his latest attempt, making the case that Combs had been trying to influence jurors from behind prison walls, his team cited Trump’s defense that he reserves the right to “criticize and speak out against the prosecution and the criminal trial process that seek to take away his liberty,” in a few filing.
“The court should apply Trump’s heightened standard when considering Mr. Combs’ speech,” Combs’ attorney team claims.
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Combs was arrested on September 16 in the lobby of a Manhattan hotel, and has remained in prison while awaiting a May 5, 2025 trial for his three-count indictment on racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking, and transportation to engage in prostitution charges.
Between the raids on his home and the many lawsuits accusing him of sexual and physical abuse and forcible drugging, Combs’ legal troubles have been at the center of the news cycle for nearly a year.
Citing Trump’s legal defense at length in the new filing, Combs’ lawyers drew a comparison to the “PR campaign” the prosecution accuses him of running from jail to woo jurors to Trump’s defense of his own comments regarding Trump v. United States, the case that would have evaluated his alleged attempts to overturn the 2020 election, before those charges were dropped on Monday.
Trump constantly shared public thoughts on the trial via social media, raising the question of whether those comments constituted obstruction of justice. Trump’s team argued, however, that “Only a significant and imminent threat to the administration of criminal justice will support restricting Mr. Trump’s speech.”
Combs said that defense should apply to him as well, as his comments about “being a ‘revolutionary’ or about a ‘racist’ prosecution involves thoughts ‘that this prosecution is politically motivated or that he is innocent of the charges against him’—core protected speech,” his lawyers wrote in the filing.
On that point, Combs’ defense concludes, “The government is essentially arguing for a standard in which the entire Press community—and civil plaintiffs and the government itself—can wage war against Mr. Combs’ reputation but Mr. Combs can’t even try to influence public opinion himself in response,” which, they write, “is simply not the law.”
