Bezos accuses Enquirer of blackmail

SEATTLE — Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s chief executive, accused the owner of The National Enquirer on Thursday of using “extortion and blackmail” in an effort to stop his investigation into how his private text messages and photos with his mistress were leaked to the tabloid.

In an online post, Bezos said intermediaries of David Pecker, chairman of American Media Inc., the nation’s biggest tabloid news publisher and owner of The National Enquirer, had approached him about stopping the investigation. Bezos said he had been told that if he refused, the publisher would make public risque and intimate photos of the billionaire and his mistress, Lauren Sanchez.

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

An attorney for AMI did not immediately respond to a call seeking comment Thursday.

The matter began last month when Bezos and his wife, Mackenzie, announced they were getting divorced. The couple disclosed their news just before The Enquirer published an article exposing that Jeff Bezos was having an affair with Sanchez, a former television host who is also married.

Bezos’ private security consultant, Gavinde Becker, is investigating whether Sanchez’s brother, who has said he supports President Donald Trump, may have been behind the leak for political reasons. Trump has long criticized Bezos, who owns The Washington Post.