cliffs:
-the national enquirer, suspiciously close friends with donald trump and MBS, comes after jeff bezos, a guy who isn't brad pitt OR jennifer aniston, potentially because he owns the washington post which happens to print things donald trump and mbs dislike being printed.
-bezos uses his incredible wealth to investigate the national enquirer
-the enquirer responds to this by trying to stop the investigation using dick pics.
-bezos "calls" and posts about the whole thing in a blog on medium.
-the enquirer has a cooperation agreement because of the stormy daniels thing to not do anything illegal so this might end badly for them

No thank you, Mr. Pecker



Jeff Bezos Accuses National Enquirer of ‘Extortion and Blackmail’

After seeing his texts in the tabloid’s pages, Mr. Bezos sprang into action, starting his own investigation into the tabloid’s motives as The Post prepared an article speculating on its potential political agenda. His tying of The Enquirer’s motive to politics, Mr. Bezos alleged in a post on Medium on Thursday, prompted associates of David J. Pecker, the chairman of American Media Inc., to threaten to publish graphic photos it had apparently obtained, as well as more of the steamy text messages.

“Of course I don’t want personal photos published, but I also won’t participate in their well-known practice of blackmail, political favors, political attacks and corruption,” Mr. Bezos wrote of A.M.I., explaining why he had decided to speak out. “I prefer to stand up, roll this log over and see what crawls out.”

Mr. Bezos said A.M.I. had political reasons for wanting him to stop looking into its decision to publish the article. He pointed to the publisher’s past cooperation with Mr. Trump, as well as its connections to the government of Saudi Arabia. The Washington Post has relentlessly reported on the murder last year of its columnist Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi dissident.

...

Mr. Bezos said he had turned to Gavin de Becker, his longtime private security consultant, for help. In recent interviews, including with The Daily Beast and The Washington Post, Mr. de Becker has said he was investigating whether Ms. Sanchez’s brother, who has said he supports Mr. Trump, may have been behind the leak for political reasons.

Those who support the president may have been motivated to move against Mr. Bezos since Mr. Trump has long criticized the billionaire. Mr. Trump has previously linked The Post and Amazon in critical Twitter posts, once declaring the “Fake Washington Post” a “lobbyist” for Amazon.

...

In Mr. Bezos’ post on Thursday, he also published several emails between Mr. de Becker’s lawyer, Martin Singer, and A.M.I.’s lawyer, Jon Fine, and chief content officer, Dylan Howard. The emails detail explicit photos The Enquirer had obtained of Mr. Bezos and Ms. Sanchez but hadn’t run, and went on to say A.M.I. would not publish the photos if Mr. Bezos stopped his investigation and publicly said he did not think the leak had been politically motivated.

In one email that Mr. Bezos disclosed, Mr. Howard wrote that The Enquirer had obtained photos of Mr. Bezos and Ms. Sanchez as part of its “newsgathering.” Included, Mr. Howard wrote, were photos that showed Ms. Sanchez simulating an oral sex scene and Mr. Bezos clad in just a white towel.

Excerpts From Jeff Bezos’ Blog Post Accusing National Enquirer of Blackmail

Mr. Bezos published an email he said was from Jon P. Fine, a lawyer for A.M.I., that included a list of demands. Some of those included:

1. A full and complete mutual release of all claims that American Media, on the one hand, and Jeff Bezos and Gavin de Becker (the “Bezos Parties”), on the other, may have against each other.

2. A public, mutually-agreed upon acknowledgment from the Bezos Parties, released through a mutually-agreeable news outlet, affirming that they have no knowledge or basis for suggesting that AM’s coverage was politically motivated or influenced by political forces, and an agreement that they will cease referring to such a possibility.

What a crazy blog. Good for Bezos making everything public. Was half expecting it to end with a dick pic (that didn't look like Toad from Mario Cart)

So obvious that Trump has Pecker right in the palm of his hand.

Lol @ blackmailing the richest dude on the planet via email. Wtf kind of moron leaves a paper trail?

I've read the fascinating book: "Conspiracy: Peter Thiel, Hulk Hogan, Gawker, and the Anatomy of Intrigue" by Ryan Holiday.

https://www.amazon.com/Conspiracy-Pe...r=8-1-fkmrnull

The subtitle of Mr. Holiday's book should have been: "It's Not Smart to Piss Off A Billionaire ..."

The dynamics of this tiff are eerily reminiscent of what went on between Peter Thiel and Nick Denton, the former publisher/owner of the (now defunct) Gawker Media. The only difference is that Mr. Pecker appears to be even more stupid than Mr. Denton. If Pecker actually goes through with his threat to publish those "embarrassing photos" of Mr. Bezos and Ms. Sanchez, he will add [probable] civil liability to all the possible criminal charges. (The initial impression is that it looks like David Pecker has stepped into a steaming pile of cow poop.)

It will be a gold mine for the lawyers. Super lawyer David Bois is rumored to be working (or has been retained) by Mr. Bezos. Mr. Bois will presumably represent and advise Mr. Bezos in any civil litigation arising from this spectacle. If Mr. Pecker has done this with Trump's urging and encouragement, he may come to regret it as Bezos has the resources - and very likely the motivation - to destroy AMI and Pecker's tabloid rag. (I don't think it would bother Jeff Bezos to spend hundreds of millions - if not a billion - to financially crush David Pecker.)

Those "embarrassing photos" may appear somewhere, but I don't think it's going to be in the pages of the National Enquirer. Doing that would be roughly equivalent to Mr. Pecker putting a gun to his head and pulling the trigger. (Since IANAL, it would be interesting to hear the opinions of some of our resident legal experts on where this is likely to go.)

I've been buying books and other "stuff" from Amazon.com since 1998. What Jeff Bezos has done by going public with these emails is a master stroke. Just like Nick Denton, David Pecker has made the fatal mistake of underestimating his opponent. Pecker made a big raise and got check raised. Now he has to decide whether to fold or go all in. (I love it!)

How did they get the pics?

He must be well endowed for it to be blackmail.

Mod Edit: Racist Ban

Bezos' security expert (best in the world) are insinuating the pics/text were not hacked, but probably intercepted by Government spy agencies...which will be fun to watch it develop.

According to a report, (i.e. speculation), that aired Thursday night on MSNBC, Mr. Bezos's security chief believes the photos were obtained by Ms. Sanchez's brother - who was described as an ardent Trump supporter. (The plot thickens ...)

Moral of the story is vet your mistress’ entire family for any trump supporters.

Feels like insane times we are living in, makes me wonder if things were always this shady but we have better access to news now or if this last few years really has been a massive departure from historical norms

My favourite bit from the blog:

In order words, 'I value my free time too much to deal with you so I've given someone else a blank cheque to do it for me'. I wish I had that much money.

I read that more as reassurance to amazon shareholders

We're a long way from proving it was NSA/whatever intercepted and then needing to prove it was done on the explicit orders of POTUS is further away still but if both those shoes dropped I think he would actually get impeached and removed?

Bezos quite literally has "**** you" money.

https://twitter.com/TheRickWilson/st...45200034848769

lol

It was even shadier in the past, tbh.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBI–King_suicide_letter

Yes, if those shoes dropped he would be gone.

OK so I guess this is the fun side of it being 2019 and literally anything being possible. We are drawing live to Donald Trump/his minions directing someone in intelligence services (American? Russian? BOTH?!?!?!) to get incriminating information on Jeff Bezos (dick pics!!!!!!) and give it to the National Enquirer in order to blackmail Bezos into backing off politically.

Wheeeeeeeeee

This could end very poorly for NE and Pecker if Bezos makes it his life's mission to destroy them.

might want to tap the brakes a bit on govt agency being used to get these pics.

People are getting a bit too hyped over this, let’s see what actual evidence Bezos has.

he must have something big if they were scared enough to attack him like that.

Also considering how much MBS doesn't like Bezos, it could be the Saudis not the US government that is being referred to.

Mentioned in the other thread, but if Mueller decides this breaches the non prosecution agreement he came to with AMI then Bezos might want to hurry because Mueller will get them first.

And I doubt anyone could read that agreement and come to the conclusion that this does not violate it.

LOL no. Senate republicans won't do anything about that. Nothing matters. Senate republicans will just look the other way because they need deplorable votes. Huck will just say that Trump is a fighter and he's just fighting back against the unfair reporting of the Washington Post or some similar garbage. Trump will just carry on as he has despite the numerous impeachable things he has done.

The only things that may get Trump impeached and convicted are dead girl or live boy. And even then it's not a stone cold lock.