Free Republic

Former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker will return the witness stand today for the second day of Donald Trump’s Manhattan criminal trial over covering up “hush money” payments to a porn star. Pecker will resume testimony where he is expected to detail the inner workings of a scheme he, Trump and his “fixer” lawyer Michael Cohen devised to buy up and bury bad news during the 2016 presidential election. Trump is on trial for allegedly fudging business records to conceal a $130,000 payoff to Stormy Daniels made before the 2016 presidential election. The 72-year-old ex-CEO of the Enquirer’s parent company,...

The National Enquirer, the gossip tabloid that became engulfed in a 2018 "catch and kill" scandal for burying news about the Trump campaign, is being sold by its owners to a digital publishing joint venture. Why it matters: The sale marks the second time the publication has undergone ownership changes since its former publisher admitted to paying $150,000 in hush money to a Playboy model in an effort to bury a story about Trump's alleged affair with her. Catch up quick: Following the "catch and kill" scandal, the Enquirer's former parent company American Media LLC, merged with Accelerate360 — a...

"The lawsuit was a purely political stunt that never should have been started, or allowed to happen," Trump said.Former President Donald Trump on Monday announced the court ruled in his favor in Stormy Daniels' libel lawsuit against him and she will have to pay him nearly $300,000 as a result.Trump announced the win on Twitter through his spokeswoman Liz Harrington. "The 9th Circuit just issued a final ruling in the Stephanie Clifford (aka Stormy Daniels) frivolous lawsuit case against me brought by her disgraced lawyer, Michael Avenatti, upholding the lower court ruling that she owes me nearly $300,000 in attorney...

U.S. Attorney General protected Joe by hiding explosive investigation An anti-corruption task force has ripped the lid off the shocking cover-up of a federal grand jury probe into Hunter Biden's dirty deals with China that might have torpedoed his father Joe Biden's run for the presidency and changed the course of history! During the heated 2020 campaign, the grand jury's secret investigation into whether Hunter laundered money, evaded taxes, and peddled his father's influence was already well underway - and it has since widened to include other members of the Biden family. The anti-corruption nonprofit group Marco uncovered a grand...

The National Enquirer used to be friendly towards the Trump administration and its publisher, David Pecker, was a Trump ally. Then they sold the paper. Now it's toeing the line just like Fox News. No story links to follow, just the cover will do.

Harvey Weinstein suggested that Jennifer Aniston “should be killed” upon learning that the National Enquirer was planning to report he sexually assaulted her, court papers revealed Tuesday. On Oct. 31, 2017, amid the barrage of #MeToo allegations against the disgraced movie mogul, Weinstein’s spokeswoman forwarded him an email from the Enquirer, the records show. “Not sure if you saw this one. Jennifer Aniston,” wrote Sallie Hofmeister, a senior executive at the powerhouse Sitrick public relations company. In its email, the Enquirer said that “Jennifer confided to a friend that during the production of the 2005 movie ‘Derailed’ Weinstein sexually assaulted...

When it comes to sexual harassment in the workplace, Jennifer Aniston said she has been treated worse by women than men in Hollywood. Aniston was asked about the #MeToo movement and more in a new wide-ranging interview for the September issue of InStyle. "I’ve definitely had some sloppy moves made on me by other actors, and I handled it by walking away," she told interviewer Molly McNearney, who is married to Jimmy Kimmel and has known Aniston for half a dozen years. "I’ve never had anyone in a position of power make me feel uncomfortable and leverage that over me....

New probe into another failed 2008 presidential bid -- of New Mexico governor BILL RICHARDSON has a decidedly JOHN EDWARDS flavor du jour. He allegedly ponied up campaign funds to silence a woman’s affair claims.

President Donald Trump plotted his takedown of accused child trafficker Jeffrey Epstein’s elite inner circle during the 2016 election, convening a meeting with then-National Enquirer owner David Pecker prior to Trump’s comment at CPAC 2015 about how Bill Clinton has a Jeffrey Epstein problem. Vanity Fair reports: “Trump had been following the story closely. In the week or so leading up to his CPAC speech, David Pecker, who owned the Enquirer until it was sold in ruin earlier this year, visited Trump on the 26th floor of Trump Tower, bringing along an issue with a Prince Andrew and Epstein-related cover,...

Michael Cohen, the former personal attorney for President Trump, told House investigators this week that staff for Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., traveled to New York at least four times to meet with him for over 10 hours immediately before last month’s high-profile public testimony, according to two sources familiar with the matter who spoke to Fox News — as Republicans question whether the meetings amounted to coaching a witness. The sources told Fox News that the sessions covered a slew of topics addressed during the public hearing before the oversight committee — including the National Enquirer’s “Catch and...

Jeff Bezos' girlfriend has privately acknowledged that she shared some photos and texts from the Amazon founder with several female friends, adding to the mystery of who leaked salacious material to the National Enquirer, according to a source close to the couple. In addition, the girlfriend, television personality Lauren Sanchez, also had the contents of her computer downloaded onto her assistant's computer for safekeeping, according to the source. What's more, investigators for Bezos are aware that Sanchez shared the photos and texts because, with her cooperation, they were able to trace the material in the cloud, where most computer and...

The brother of Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos' girlfriend, former TV anchor Lauren Sanchez, criticized the tech billionaire's decision to try to preempt the National Enquirer's scoop on their affair. Michael Sanchez told Fox News' "MediaBuzz" Sunday that he had been negotiating with the Enquirer's parent company, American Media Inc., to soften a forthcoming story on the couple's extramarital affair when Bezos' longtime security adviser Gavin de Becker "launched World War III against AMI" by advising Bezos to undermine the scoop with what Sanchez called a "misleading" tweet about Bezos' divorce from wife MacKenzie. "Everything that Gavin has advised...

A lawyer for American Media Inc. pushed back at Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ claim that the parent company of the National Enquirer threatened to expose nude selfies and bawdy text messages he exchanged with his mistress. “It absolutely is not extortion and not blackmail,” Elkan Abramowitz said on ABC’s “This Week” Sunday. “That is not extortion because all that AMI wanted was the truth.” He said the information about Bezos and former TV anchor Lauren Sanchez came from a “reliable source.” “Bezos and Ms. Sanchez knew who the source was,” Abramowitz said. “Any investigator who was going to investigate this...

That's one aspect of this fiasco that keeps ticking Bezos off - there's this unspoken meme out there that the richer you are, the smarter you must be. (Look at guys like Bill Gates or the founders of Google - smart computer guys, right?) And as The World's Richest Person, Bezos was happy to bask in this implied adulation too. But the fact that he would take "intimate self-pix" and send them over electronic media - which everyone, even poor peons like us, knows is hackable - shows really dumb behavior. (Bill Gates and Donald Trump never did this). Sure...

A Washington Post reporter challenged her newspaper's billionaire owner Jeff Bezos in a series of tweets on Monday to provide paid paternal leave and give female employees equal pay. National reporter Abigail Hauslohner linked to Bezos' tweet expressing gratitude to journalists and promoting the Washington Post‘s Super Bowl ad. The commercial, which cost $5.25 million, was narrated by Tom Hanks and highlighted the work of journalists to bring citizens the facts, "no matter the cost." "I am proud to report for @washingtonpost," Hauslohner wrote. "I’ve been shot at while on the job, & I’ve run [from] airstrikes. I’ve been threatened...

One of the biggest and most salacious stories currently, involving the world's richest man and one of the most powerful and an upcoming mega billion dollar divorce - the kind the media loves to go on and on for weeks and months - and yet there is a not a mention of Bezos anywhere. Just out of curiosity I scanned the standard MSM sites : abcnews.com - no mention cbsnews.com - no mention nbcnews.com - no mention huffingtonpost.com - no mention nytimes.com - no mention wapo.com - no mention seattletimes.com - no mention latimes.com - no mention chicagotribune.com - no...

Full tile: Jeff Bezos Protests the Invasion of His Privacy, as Amazon Builds a Sprawling Surveillance State for Everyone Else IF BEZOS WERE the political victim of surveillance state abuses, it would be scandalous and dangerous. It would also be deeply ironic. That’s because Amazon, the company that has made Bezos the planet’s richest human being, is a critical partner for the U.S. Government in building an ever-more invasive, militarized and sprawling surveillance state. Indeed, one of the largest components of Amazon’s business, and thus one of the most important sources of Bezos’ vast wealth and power, is working with...

Federal prosecutors are reviewing Mr. Bezos’ claim that he has been extorted, according to two people briefed on the matter who were not authorized to discuss it publicly. And those prosecutors have planned a meeting with Mr. Bezos’ representatives, one of those people said. If American Media is found to have broken a law — any law — it would be in violation of a [previous] deal with federal prosecutors from the Southern District of New York.

I am very excited for this new episode in our national drama, in which the world’s richest man publicly accuses allies of the president of extorting him with private photos of his genitalia if he doesn’t stop accusing them of politically driven hatchet jobs.For dramatic purposes, it can’t end any other way except with Bezos producing evidence that Trump himself put the Enquirer up to digging up dirt on him, as revenge for the Washington Post’s negative coverage of POTUS. And then we’ll have a fun national debate over whether it’s wrong for the president to use scandal sheets...

I know this opinion is controversial but I really think season three of “President Trump” might be the best season yet. Washington Posts @RoigFranzia says Bezos' team thinks it's possible that the text leaks were politically motivated and that a "government entity" accessed the Bezos texts and hoo boy that's certainly something pic.twitter.com/MQuzNFbCed— Andrew Lawrence (@ndrew_lawrence) February 8, 2019 My first thought when I watched that clip was, “Is … is he suggesting that Trump secretly ordered some federal agency to hack Bezos’s dick pics to ruin him?” That’s hard to believe, not so much because it’s beneath POTUS...