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Also see: Stormy Daniels; Karen McDougal; Michael Cohen; Dylan Howard; Barry Levine;
Jump to: 2018; 2019;
Undated: David Jay Pecker[3] (born September 24, 1951) is the chairman and CEO of American Media. He is the publisher of National Enquirer, Star, Sun, Weekly World News, Globe, Men's Fitness, Muscle and Fitness, Flex, Fit Pregnancy, and Shape.
In 2018, Pecker became embroiled in controversy regarding his involvement in a catch and kill operation to buy exclusive rights to stories that might embarrass his friend Donald Trump, to prevent the stories from becoming public during the 2016 presidential campaign. In 2019, former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen stated that he assisted Pecker in this operation.[4]
Beginning in March 1998, Hachette Filipacchi Media U.S., of which Pecker was then CEO, began producing Trump Style, which was distributed to guests at Donald Trump's properties.[14][15] Pecker has described himself as a close friend of Trump. Pecker supported Trump's initial run for president as part of the Reform Party in 2000.[7]
In an August 2014 meeting at Trump Tower, Pecker offered to Trump that he would use the National Enquirer to catch and kill any allegations of sexual affairs against him.[16]
Trump's lawyer Michael Cohen requested that Pecker's AMI buy the rights to Stormy Daniel's story, though Pecker refused to do so.[17]
By 2018, Pecker and AMI found themselves under investigation for using catch and kill payments, in which AMI purchased the exclusive rights to stories that might have been damaging to Trump's 2016 campaign for President and then refused to publish them. Such a tactic may have represented illegal and/or undeclared "in-kind" campaign donations under Federal Election Commission rules.[7]
In March 2018, Karen McDougal filed a lawsuit against American Media in Los Angeles Superior Court, aiming to invalidate the non-disclosure agreement preventing her from speaking about an alleged affair with Trump. Pecker had directed AMI to purchase the exclusive rights to the story for $150,000 in 2016, allegedly to keep it from the public.[18] In April 2018 the lawsuit was settled and McDougal was released from the agreement. AMI also agreed to feature her on the cover of another AMI magazine, Men's Journal, in September 2018.[19][20]
In late 2015, AMI paid $30,000 to Dino Sajudin, a doorman at Trump Tower, to obtain the rights to his story in which he alleged Trump had an affair in the 1980s that resulted in the birth of a child. Sajudin in April 2018 identified the woman as Trump's former housekeeper.[22] AMI reporters were given the names of the woman and the alleged child, while Sajudin passed a lie detector test when testifying that he had heard the story from others. Shortly after the payment was made, Pecker ordered the reporters to drop the story.[23] In April 2018, AMI chief content officer Dylan Howard denied the story was “spiked” in a catch and kill operation, insisting that AMI did not run the story because Sajudin‘s story lacked credibility.[24] CNN obtained a copy of the contract between AMI and Sajudin in August 2018, after AMI had released Sajudin from the contract. CNN published excerpts of the contract, which instructed Sajudin to provide "information regarding Donald Trump's illegitimate child", but did not contain further specifics of Sajudin's story.[25]
In January 2019, Pecker's National Enquirer published what it called “sleazy text messages and gushing love notes” between Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and a romantic partner. Bezos began investigating how his personal communications reached the paper. The next month, Bezos accused the National Enquirer of extortion and blackmail by threatening to release Bezos' intimate pictures,[28] criminal accusations Pecker denied through an attorney. Bezos wrote[29] that AMI proposed in writing that Bezos state publically that he and his security consultant “have no knowledge or basis for suggesting that AMI’s coverage was politically motivated or influenced by political forces.” In return, AMI would withhold publication of the pictures.[30] Both AMI and the Manhattan prosecutor launched reviews of the accusations.[31] Any violation of law by AMI would constitute a breach of the immunity agreement the company reached with prosecutors in 2018 after the paper agreed to "catch and kill" a story on behalf of then-candidate Donald Trump.[32] Ronan Farrow, a journalist, said he and another journalist received similar demands from AMI.[33]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Pecker
-- 2018 --
November 23: ‘National Enquirer’ Editor May Spill Trump Secrets in New Book
Ultimate insider Barry Levine may reveal details about Trump's relationship with ‘Enquirer’ editor David Pecker, who has been moving away from his old ally in recent months.
The Enquirer has been accused of using its financial muscle to buy up the stories of women who claimed to have had affairs with Trump and then burying them.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/national-enquirer-editor-may-spill-trump-secrets-in-new-book
December 14: Trump and the National Enquirer: David Pecker could be very bad news for Trump
David Pecker, publisher of the National Enquirer, is coming clean at last. Trump knows that could spell doom
https://www.salon.com/2018/12/14/trump-and-the-national-enquirer-david-pecker-could-be-very-bad-news-for-trump/
-- 2019 --
February 9: Former National Enquirer editor: David Pecker 'may end up doing time'
https://thehill.com/homenews/media/429257-former-national-enquirer-editor-david-pecker-may-end-up-doing-time
March 2: ... there was evidently a great deal more to the relationship between Trump and Pecker/AMI than the McDougal case, Cohen said. Pecker's company worked many times to buy embarrassing stories about Trump, even ones that weren't true, which enabled AMI to compile a "treasure trove" of potentially damaging material.
Cohen was so interested in what AMI had accumulated that when Pecker was negotiating to potentially take another important publishing job, Cohen wanted to buy the Trump archive on behalf of his client to ensure it was kept safe.
Who else would know about the "treasure trove" and these practices? Former National Enquirer editor Barry Levine would, Cohen said, as well as a vice president of AMI, Dylan Howard.
https://www.npr.org/2019/03/02/699309857/who-from-trump-world-do-house-democrats-likely-want-to-talk-to-next
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