Fact Check: Did Kamala Harris and Doug Emhoff Warn Diddy About the $500K Homeland Security Raid?

NEW YORK, NEW YORK: Rapper Sean “Diddy” Combs was arrested on September 16, 2024 on multiple serious charges.

Shortly after, some MAGA supporters took note of an old tweet from Vice President Kamala Harris, who praised Combs for hosting a town hall on racial inequality during the Covid-19 pandemic. The resurfaced post sparked criticism of the vice president.

Now, nearly two months later, a claim has emerged that Kamala Harris’ husband, Doug Emhoff, tipped off Combs about the March 2024 Department of Homeland Security raid and allegedly received $500,000 for it. But what is the truth behind these statements? Let’s explore further.

Claim: Kamala Harris and Doug Emhoff warned Diddy about $500K before the raid

The website PatriotVoiceNews.com published an article on Wednesday, October 30, alleging that Kamala Harris’ husband Doug Emhoff tipped off Sean “Diddy” Combs about a government raid in March 2024. The article also included a short video that attempted to show a source explaining what happened.

Moreover, several X accounts also shared this claim in posts that received thousands of likes and views. The article and reports also alleged that Combs paid Harris and Emhoff $500,000 in tips.

False: Kamala Harris and Doug Emhoff didn’t warn Diddy before the $500K raid.

The claims made in the article and social media posts were false as there was no publicly available evidence to support the claim. According to Snopes, an investigation into PatriotVoiceNews, the site where the original article was published, revealed many reasons why it is not a reliable source of information.

Moreover, evidence suggests that the accompanying video supporting the claim was digitally altered or created using an artificial intelligence tool.

Proof: PatriotVoiceNews is not a credible news site.

Many reasons indicated that PatriotVoiceNews is not a reliable news site. It didn’t have an “About Us” section or a header to let readers know who was behind the site. These pages are standard practice for any reputable media site.

An IP address lookup tool found that the domain name PatriotVoiceNews.com was registered on Aug. 5, 2024, just three months before the article was published, Snopes reported.

In addition, Snopes also used the Sitesucker tool to download the entire website and found even more suspicious information. In just three months, more than 1,000 articles from one author were published on the site. This indicated that it was not a legitimate news site.

The accompanying video does not provide sufficient evidence to substantiate the claim

The accompanying video did not provide sufficient evidence to support this claim. It was shot vertically from a car and had a large blur obscuring the person speaking, but the person’s hand gestures did not match any sound.

Moreover, neither of the two voices in the audio recording sounded particularly realistic. As at 48 seconds, the “witness” mispronounced Combs’ last name.