Bezos says he’s being extorted.
He accuses David Pecker, a friend of President Trump, of using his media company for political purposes; Amazon’s founder publishes threats to make intimate photos public
Jeff Bezos, the world’s richest man, says he is being blackmailed and extorted by the owner of the National Enquirer, which he says is threatening to publishnude photos of him.
Last month, Bezos and his wife, MacKenzie, announced that they are divorcing after 25 years of marriage. Hours later, the Enquirer published text messages between Bezos and his girlfriend, Los Angeles news anchor Lauren Gonzales.
In an unusually personal blog post titled “No thank you, Mr. Pecker,” the Amazon founder and CEO — who rarely gives media interviews nor responds publicly to personal attacks — on Thursday published letters from American Media Inc., which is led by David Pecker, a longtime friend of President Donald Trump.
Pecker was bothered by the fact that Bezos had hired investigators, including Gavin deBecker, to find out how the Enquirer had gotten ahold of his texts, and was demanding that Bezos stop his investigation and declare that the publication of the texts was not politically motivated, the Amazon CEO said.
“In the AMI letters I’m making public, you will see the precise details of their extortionate proposal: They will publish the personal photos unless Gavin de Becker and I make the specific false public statement to the press that we ‘ have no knowledge or basis for suggesting that AMI’s coverage was politically motivated or influenced by political forces.’ ” Bezoswrote in a post on Medium.
Bezos pointed out that last year, Pecker entered into an immunity deal with federal prosecutors over his publication’s role in the coverup by former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen of Trump’s alleged affairs with Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal. The letters from AMI threatened to make public 10 photos, including selfies of Bezos fully dressed and in various stages of undress.
One such photo is described this way: “A fulllength body selfie of Mr. Bezos wearing just a pair of tight black boxer-briefs or trunks, with his phone in his left hand — whilewearing his wedding ring.” AMI had asked that Bezos cooperate and that an agreement be kept confidential.
Jon Fine, the deputy general counsel for AMI who proposed that agreement, has not returned a request for comment Thursday.
Bezos, 55, who according to Forbes’ real-time wealth tracker is worth $ 133.5 billion, said in his post that despite the embarrassment publicizing the threats brings, he had to do it. “Any personal embarrassment AMI could cause me takes a back seat because there’s a much more important matter involved here,” he wrote. “If in my position I can’t stand up to this kind of extortion, how many people can?”
In the post, he referred to his ownership of The Washington Post as “a complexifier” for him, although he said he didn’t regret its investment in it. “It’s unavoidable that certain powerful people who experience Washington Post news coverage will wrongly conclude I am their enemy,” Bezos wrote. “President Trump is one of those people, obvious by his many tweets. Also, The Post’s essential and unrelenting coverage of the murder of its columnist Jamal Khashoggi is undoubtedly unpopular in certain circles.”
Bezos also mentioned that there are questions about Pecker’s business dealings with Saudi Arabia.
Trump, who has railed against Bezos, Amazon and the Post, gloated in a tweet in January when news of the Bezos marriage scandal was published, referring to Bezos as “JeffBozo.” Among the things Trump has complained about regarding Amazon, the giant online retailer: that it “gets away” with paying no “internet taxes,” although there is no such thing as internet taxes, and that it has taken advantage of theU.S. Postal Service.
Meanwhile, Trump has called the Post “nothing more than an expensive … lobbyist” for Amazon.