Federal prosecutors in Manhattan are looking into whether American Media Inc., the company that publishes the National Enquirer, violated its non-prosecution agreement as a result of conduct alleged by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.
The non-prosecution agreement, signed in September 2018, describes AMI’s role in a payment to Playboy model Karen McDougal, who said she had an affair with Donald Trump prior to his presidential candidacy.
Former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to a campaign finance violation for arranging a hush-money payment to McDougal, and AMI agreed to cooperate with prosecutors rather than face similar charges for helping to facilitate the payment.
Bezos published a post yesterday in which he quoted e-mails and correspondence that he said showed that AMI threatened to publish intimate photos of Bezos and his girlfriend if he did not stop investigating how AMI had obtained them.
AMI’s non-prosecution agreement makes it clear that the company can be prosecuted for any crime that may have occurred after the agreement was signed.
“It is understood that should AMI commit any crimes subsequent to the date of signing of this agreement,” says the agreement, “AMI shall thereafter be subject to prosecution for any criminal violation of which this Office has knowledge.”
The agreement also explicitly states that the non-prosecution deal only applies to crimes related to the payments associated with Cohen’s guilty plea.
Ronan Farrow, one of the reporters who covered the Trump-Enquirer alliance, tweeted today that he and “at least one other prominent journalist” had been on the receiving end of American Media’s “blackmail efforts.”
A person familiar with the National Enquirer’s operation told CNN Business that similar accusations of blackmail might come to light.
Meantime, The Enquirer’s website doesn’t say a word about this controversy.
AMI’s CEO David Pecker had a decades-long copacetic friendship with Trump.
Pecker kept a safe containing documents on hush money payments and other damaging stories it killed as part of its cozy relationship with Trump leading up to the 2016 presidential election, people familiar with the arrangement told The Associated Press.
The tabloid spent weeks attacking Hillary Clinton with bogus headlines before the 2016 election.
According to Chuck Rosenberg, a former U.S. attorney who is now an NBC News analyst, AMI’s alleged interactions with Bezos are “arguably a violation of the extortion statute.”
Added Rosenberg, “Prosecutors must also assess whether AMI has put its non-prosecution agreement with the Justice Department given its written promise not to commit additional crimes at risk.”
Mimi Rocah, a former assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York and an NBC News analyst, said AMI’s interactions would likely invalidate the non-prosecution agreement if the firm clearly committed a crime.
“It doesn’t have to be a federal crime,” said Rocah. “It could be a state crime.”