Last week, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos posted on Medium that AMI, which publishes the National Enquirer, told him it would publish embarrassing photos of him if he did not publicly state that the Enquirer’s coverage was not politically motivated. Gavin de Becker, Bezos’ powerful private security consultant believes leak of the images was politically motivated, mostly because the Enquirer’s execs are buddies with President Trump, and well, Bezos is definitely not.
Not one to shy away from a fight, Bezos responded by outing the Enquirer’s tactics, by posting two emails from the Enquirer. One was from Howard Dylan, Chief Content Officer at AMI describing the photos it had of Bezos and a woman named Lauren Sanchez, with whom Bezos is rumored to have had an affair. A separate email from AMI Deputy General Counsel Jon Fine proposed terms wherein Bezos would publicly affirmed there was no political connection to AMI’s coverage AMI would agree not to publish texts and photos.
Them’s the Facts. But here’s the real skinny:
According to The Verge, it all started on January 9th, when Jeff and MacKenzie Bezos announced that after 25 years of marriage, they would be getting divorced. The announcement came in an early morning tweet with a longer statement attached. “After a long period of loving exploration and trial separation, we have decided to divorce and continue our shared lives as friends.”
Bummer, but no scandal, right? Wait for it….
The following day, a story in the National Enquirer detailed Bezos’ ongoing relationship with a woman named Lauren Sanchez. The exposé was well-sourced, quoting extensively from Bezos’ texts to Sanchez and making reference to “a cache of lewd selfies” that he sent. The Enquirer claimed to have seen the selfies, but did not publish any of them or describe them in detail. Even though The Enquirer’s story hinted otherwise, TMZ’s investigators suggested the affair happened after Bezos and his wife had separated.
In many ways, it was a standard tabloid exposé, but given the Enquirer’s close ties to President Trump, there was a lot of speculation suggesting the story was politically motivated — potentially a retaliation for various Trump investigations by The Washington Post, which is owned by Bezos. Trump gloated over the story on Twitter, which only added fuel to the fire.
The Daily Beast broke the news that Bezos had hired a team of investigators, who were looking into how the Enquirer had obtained the texts and whether Trump allies had been involved in the story. There was still no firm link to Trump, but Bezos at least found the link plausible enough to spend a lot of money getting to the bottom of it.
Then, the dam broke. According to Bezos’ Medium post, the Enquirer responded to his investigation with an outright threat. Unless Bezos called off the investigators and declared there had been no political influence, the Enquirer would publish the photos sent to Sanchez, embarrassing the Amazon CEO even further. Bezos refused the offer and published the correspondence, calling out the Enquirer for what he saw as an extortion attempt. Bezos called the emails blackmail; the ‘Enquirer’ calls them “negotiation.” But the result puts more pressure than ever on the Enquirer to justify its story and dispel any possible political motivations.
So far, no evidence has turned up linking Trump to the Enquirer story, although Bezos’ investigation is ongoing, and the Enquirer’s actions certainly make it seem like they had something to hide. Enquirer parent company AMI has said it is investigating Bezos’ allegations, but it seems unlikely the tabloid will face any significant blowback internally.
It’s also unclear whether the Enquirer broke the law in threatening Bezos. For their part, AMI issued a statement, saying their tactics were a “negotiation” over alleged defamation by Bezos, combined with a journalistic interest in publishing the photos. The legal precedents around this kind of extortion are ambiguous and it’s unclear whether AMI’s defense would hold up in court. So far, no charges have been brought, but our guess is, neither one of these players has any intention of letting this go. And, federal prosecutors are reportedly investigating the matter. Stay tuned….
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