Category: Michael Novakhov – SharedNewsLinks℠

Sean “Diddy” Combs wanted Justin Bieber to keep what took place during their hangouts under wraps, according to a resurfaced “Jimmy Kimmel Live” clip.

The disgraced music mogul appeared with the “Baby” singer on the late night talk show in 2011 when the latter was just 16. They discussed their close-knit bond with host Jimmy Kimmel at the time.

“What’s going on with you guys? Are you working together?” Kimmel asked in the clip, which is making the rounds online in light of Combs’ serious legal issues.

The former Bad Boy Records exec responded, “No … We’ve become friends in a strange way” before elaborating, “To a lot of us, he’s like a little brother … He’s not afraid to call and ask for advice.”

The “Bad Boy for Life” rapper explained that the music industry is “a strong family” and many people, including himself, want to have their “arms around” Bieber to “protect him” because he’s a “nice person.”

Combs continued to gush about the “Somebody to Love” singer, “Besides his talent, he’s one of the greatest kids that you could ever know.”

Bieber thanked the “Tell Me” rapper for his remarks as the audience clapped during the segment, and Kimmel, 56, pointed out that perhaps Combs could buy the young singer a car as he did with his son.

“He got me a Lamborghini — I just haven’t gotten it yet,” the “Never Say Never” chimed in, prompting Combs to look off to the side in annoyance.

“He had the Lamborghini for a day or two and he had access to the house,” the “Last Night” rapper then said, seemingly referencing when the two spent 48 hours together, per a YouTube video Bieber posted.

“He knows better than to be talking about the things that he does with big brother Puff on national television,” Combs added. “Everything ain’t for everybody.”

When Combs and Bieber spent those two days together back in 2009, the “Coming Home” rapper told the “Beauty and the Beat” singer that they were “gonna go full buck full crazy.”

“Where we hanging out and what we doing, we can’t really disclose, but it’s definitely a 15-year-old’s dream,” Combs added in the YouTube video.

Amid the former Sean John CEO’s sex crimes scandal, another clip of Combs with Bieber resurfaced online, which shows the latter appearing very uncomfortable at some of the former’s remarks.

Combs said in that second video, “Selling out arenas and everything? Starting to act different, huh? You haven’t been calling me and hanging out the way we used to hang out.”

Bieber is then seen awkwardly pulling out his phone and replying, “You tried to get in contact with me throughout all my [partners] and what not — but you never got my number, so want my number?”

A rep for the “Peaches” singer recently said, however, that while Bieber, now 30, is “aware of Diddy’s arrest and all the allegations,” he “just wants to focus on being a great dad and husband.”

Combs has been charged with sex trafficking, racketeering and transportation of a prostitute. He faces a minimum of 15 years and a maximum life sentence.

At a recent press conference, the “I Need a Girl” rapper was accused of sexually assaulting 120 people, including 25 minors. One of the alleged victims was only 9 years old at the time of the crime.

Attorney Tony Buzbee, who hosted the presser, warned that “many powerful people” are set to be exposed in connection to Diddy’s alleged misdeeds, claiming the names will “shock” the public.

Combs is currently awaiting his trial behind bars. No court date has been set yet.

As for Justin, he tied the knot with Hailey Bieber in September 2018 and the two welcomed their first child in August 2024.

If you or someone you know is affected by any of the issues raised in this story, call the Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-330-0226.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump laid the groundwork to try to overturn the 2020 election even before he lost, knowingly pushed false claims of voter fraud and “resorted to crimes” in his failed bid to cling to power, according to a court filing unsealed Wednesday that offers new evidence from the landmark criminal case against the former president.

The filing from special counsel Jack Smith’s team offers the most comprehensive view to date of what prosecutors intend to prove if the case charging Trump with conspiring to overturn the election reaches trial. Although a months-long congressional investigation and the indictment itself have chronicled in stark detail Trump’s efforts to undo the election, the filing cites previously unknown accounts offered by Trump’s closest aides to paint a portrait of an “increasingly desperate” president who, while losing his grip on the White House, “used deceit to target every stage of the electoral process.”

“So what?” the filing quotes Trump as telling an aide after being advised that his vice president, Mike Pence, had been rushed to a secure location after a crowd of violent Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, to try to prevent the counting of electoral votes.

“The details don’t matter,” Trump said, when told by an adviser that a lawyer who was mounting his legal challenges wouldn’t be able to prove the false allegations in court, the filing states.

The brief was made public over the Trump legal team’s objections in the final month of a closely contested presidential race in which Democrats have sought to make Trump’s refusal to accept the election results four years ago central to their claims that he is unfit for office. The issue flared as recently as Tuesday night’s vice presidential debate when Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat, lamented the violence at the Capitol while a Republican opponent, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, refused to directly answer when asked whether Trump had lost the 2020 race.

The filing was submitted, initially under seal, following a Supreme Court opinion that conferred broad immunity on former presidents for official acts they take in office, a decision that narrowed the scope of the prosecution and eliminated the possibility of a trial before next month’s election.

The purpose of the brief is to persuade U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan that the offenses charged in the indictment were undertaken in Trump’s private, rather than presidential, capacity and can therefore remain part of the case as it moves forward. Chutkan permitted a redacted version to be made public, even though Trump’s lawyers argued that it was unfair to unseal it so close to the election.

Though the prospects of a trial are uncertain, particularly if Trump wins the presidency and a new attorney general seeks the dismissal of the case, the brief nonetheless functions as a roadmap for the testimony and evidence prosecutors would elicit before a jury. It is now up to Chutkan to decide which of Trump’s acts are official conduct for which Trump is immune from prosecution and which are, in the words of Smith’s team, “private crimes” on which the case can proceed.

“Although the defendant was the incumbent President during the charged conspiracies, his scheme was fundamentally a private one,” Smith’s team wrote, adding, “When the defendant lost the 2020 presidential election, he resorted to crimes to try to stay in office.”

Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung called the brief “falsehood-ridden” and “unconstitutional” and repeated oft-stated allegations that Smith and Democrats were “hell-bent on weaponizing the Justice Department.” Trump, in a separate post on his Truth Social platform, said the case would end with his “complete victory.”

The filing alleges that Trump “laid the groundwork” for rejecting the election results before the contest was over, telling advisers that in the event he held an early lead he would “declare victory before the ballots were counted and any winner was projected.”

Immediately after the election, prosecutors say, his advisers sought to sow chaos in the counting of votes. In one instance, a campaign employee described as a Trump co-conspirator was told that results favoring Democrat Joe Biden at a Michigan polling center appeared accurate. The person is alleged to have replied: “find a reason it isnt” and “give me options to file litigation.”

Prosecutors also alleged that Trump advanced claims of fraud despite knowing they were false, recounting how he conceded to others that allegations of election irregularities made by attorney Sidney Powell were “crazy” and referenced the science fiction series “Star Trek.” Even so, days later, he promoted on Twitter a lawsuit she was about to file.

In demonstrating his apparent indifference to the accuracy of the election fraud claims, prosecutors also cite an account of a White House staffer who after the election overheard Trump telling his wife, daughter and son-in-law on Marine One: “It doesn’t matter if you won or lost the election. You still have to fight like hell.”

The filing also includes details of conversations between Trump and Pence, including a private lunch on Nov. 12, 2020, in which Pence “reiterated a face-saving option” for Trump, telling him, “Don’t concede but recognize the process is over.”

In another lunch days later, Pence urged Trump to accept the election results and run again in 2024.

“I don’t know, 2024 is so far off,” Trump told him, the filing states.

Prosecutors say that by Dec. 5, the defendant was starting to think about Congress’ role in the process.

“For the first time, he mentioned to Pence the possibility of challenging the election results in the House of Representatives,” it says, citing a phone call.

But, prosecutors wrote, Trump “disregarded” Pence “in the same way he disregarded dozens of court decisions that unanimously rejected his and his allies’ legal claims, and that he disregarded officials in the targeted states — including those in his own party — who stated publicly that he had lost and that his specific fraud allegations were false.”

Pence chronicled some of his interactions with Trump, and his eventual split with him, in a 2022 book called “So Help Me God.” He also was ordered to appear before the grand jury investigating Trump after courts rejected claims of executive privilege.

Prosecutors also argue Trump used his Twitter account to spread false claims of election fraud, attacking “those speaking the truth” about his loss and exhorting his supporters to travel to Washington for the Jan. 6, 2021, certification.

They intend to use “forensic evidence” from Trump’s iPhone to provide insight into Trump’s actions after the Capitol attack.

Of the more than 1,200 Tweets Trump sent during the weeks detailed in the indictment, prosecutors say, the vast majority were about the 2020 election, including those falsely claiming Pence could reject electors even though the vice president had told Trump that he had no such power.

That “steady stream of disinformation” culminated in his speech at the Ellipse on the morning of Jan. 6, 2021, where Trump “used these lies to inflame and motivate the large and angry crowd of his supporters to march to the Capitol and disrupt the certification proceeding,” prosecutors wrote.

His “personal desperation was at its zenith” that morning as he was “only hours from the certification proceeding that spelled the end,” prosecutors wrote.

___

Associated Press writers Jill Colvin and Lisa Mascaro contributed to this report.

The 2024 presidential race has seen enough shocking events transpire in a few short months to fill an entire calendar year, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be a much-talked about October surprise looming in the final weeks of the campaign.

Each of the past two presidential cycles have been marked by an October surprise, including the “Access Hollywood” tape along with the Comey letter in 2016 and then questions around a laptop belonging to Hunter Biden in 2020.

Here are five potential October surprises that could emerge this year.

The emergence of new video or audio

Each of the last two presidential elections have been marked by the emergence of new audio or video footage through news reports. 

In 2016, it was the “Access Hollywood” tape in which Trump was heard bragging about groping women, which nearly ended his White House bid that year. In 2020, it was the Hunter Biden laptop that featured controversial images of President Biden’s son.

For Harris, the risk of new audio or video coming to light centers around her past policy positions. 

News outlets have been focused on some of the policies Harris backed during her 2020 presidential bid, when she said she supported a ban on fracking and backed decriminalizing illegally crossing the border. Additional audio or video of her as a presidential candidate, prosecutor or senator could cause new headaches for her campaign. She has distanced herself from those views during the 2024 campaign.

Trump’s ability to shock the general electorate has waned over the near decade he’s spent in the political spotlight with each incendiary comment he makes at rallies and on social media.

Even in 2016, Trump managed to quickly recover from the “Access Hollywood” scandal in a matter of days.

But video and audio of closed-door remarks by Trump to donors, for example, could create a firestorm or provide fodder for the Harris campaign, such as when the former president promised wealthy donors tax cuts in a potential second term.

The significance of a damaging news report was on display last month when CNN reported on posts North Carolina GOP gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson, whom Trump endorsed, made on an online pornography forum between 2008 and 2012, including that he supported slavery and called himself a “Black Nazi.”

A major weather event

The devastation of Hurricane Helene in recent days was a prime example of how a significant weather event could upend the campaign in the coming weeks.

Helene ravaged swaths of Florida, Georgia and North Carolina, taking out critical infrastructure and cutting off power for millions of people in those states. White House homeland security adviser Liz Sherwood-Randall told reporters Monday as many as 600 people were still unaccounted for.

The political impacts were immediate: Harris cut short a West Coast campaign swing to return to Washington, D.C., for a storm briefing. She is expected to tour storm damage in the coming days, while Trump visited Georgia to see the aftermath Monday.

There is also the possibility that the storm damage could hinder early voting, particularly in North Carolina and Georgia, where early in-person voting is set to begin in the coming weeks. Both of those states are closely contested and are expected to help determine the winner of November’s election.

Hurricane season lasts into November, leaving open the possibility of another major storm along the Gulf Coast. And White House officials in particular have warned that climate change has led to more damaging, more intense storms that could wreak havoc on the campaign.

More political violence

One of the gravest potential October surprises would be violence targeting candidates, election workers, staff or other officials.

Trump has been at the center of two attempted assassinations in recent months, ratcheting up fears of political divisions turning to violence. He was grazed by a bullet at a July rally, and an alleged gunman camped out along the perimeter of one of his golf club’s in September before a Secret Service agent fired at him.

A Virginia man was arrested in late July for allegedly making death threats against Harris.

NBC News reported in September that the FBI was investigating after election officials in at least six states received suspicious packages.

“I’m most concerned about vote-counting and election judges and violence. There’s been a pretty clear pattern of threats about who gets to count votes,” John Murphy, a professor at the University of Illinois who studies political rhetoric, said in a recent interview.

But calls to lower the political temperature after each of those assassination attempts have mostly been futile, with Trump in particular ramping up the personal attacks on his opponents. 

On Monday, the former president blamed Democrats for Secret Service staffing issues that forced him to relocate a Saturday rally in Wisconsin.

Another Trump-Harris debate

Perhaps one of the likeliest events that could shake up the presidential race would be a second debate between Trump and Harris.

The two candidates squared off on stage Sept. 10, but Trump has thus far declined to agree to a second debate, claiming he won their first clash and later suggesting it was too late for another one because early voting had already started.

Harris has repeatedly pushed for another debate with Trump in October. She has accepted an invite for a CNN-hosted debate Oct. 23.

But some Trump allies have urged him to reconsider, and there is a lingering sense that the former president could still change his mind if he feels his poll numbers could use a boost or he needs to change the news cycle in the weeks before Election Day.

“As of right now this is the only debate that is left on the calendar. President Trump has made it pretty clear where he is,” senior Trump adviser Jason Miller said Monday, referring to this week’s vice presidential clash. “There were other opportunities that Kamala Harris could have joined President Trump for previous debates.”

Broader war breaks out

While domestic events are most likely to have the most impact on the election, the risk of war breaking out abroad could also have serious ramifications on the campaign.

There are significant concerns about tensions in the Middle East, where Israel’s war with Hamas is approaching its one-year mark. 

Separately, Israel decimated Hezbollah’s leadership with strikes over the past week, while also killing hundreds of civilians and forcing nearly 1 million people from their homes in Lebanon.

Israel reportedly told the White House on Monday it could launch a limited ground operation in Lebanon in the coming days, escalating fears of an all-out war between Israeli forces and Hezbollah, designated by the U.S. as a terrorist organization.

Such a war could further inflame tensions among Democrats in particular, as the party has been divided over the Biden administration’s support for Israel over the past year despite its forces killing tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians in Gaza in its war against Hamas.

It would also create a potential opening for Trump to go on offense on foreign policy. While Harris has argued Trump can’t be trusted to maintain alliances and that he has cozied up to dictators, the former president has pointed to conflicts in Ukraine and in the Middle East to argue the world is less safe than it was when he was in office.