Donald’s ‘dirty dozen’ dossier
Magazine had bombshell files on Trump’s alleged affairs but did secret deal with him, claims insider
THE crowd roared as Donald Trump stood at the podium inside New York’s Trump Tower and announced his intention to run for President of the United States.
It was June 2015 and just 17 months later the billionaire businessman would do what many considered impossible: win the race for the White House against Hillary Clinton.
But even as his campaign bid was being beamed around the world, an equally extraordinary scene was unfolding inside a muggy warehouse 1,900km away in Lantana, Florida.
The laidback beach town is home to 10,000 people, but for years its most famous – and infamous – resident had been the National Enquirer, America’s most notorious tabloid magazine.
Inside the warehouse, its editor, Dylan Howard, was searching through stacks of plain manila folders. The Enquirer had recently moved its head office to New York, but the Lantana warehouse stored hundreds of old story files.
Inside the folders lay the most intimate details of the affairs, secret love children and sexual peccadillos of some of the world’s most famous names, some dating back decades.
But he was looking only for folders bearing one name – ‘Trump’.
Recalling the documents that made their way back to New York, a source said: ‘It was the dossier to end all dossiers.
‘There were stories on Trump stretching back to the 1970s and his first marriage to Ivana. No one was shocked that he’s a serial philanderer, we all knew that, but it was the volume of damaging stories against him that was staggering. We had Trump nailed.’
Indeed, The Mail on Sunday has learned that the files contained alleged details of:
n At least a dozen affairs and payoffs – some for acts of sexual misconduct – to women including models and Playboy playmates;
n A $30,000 payment to ‘Dino the doorman’, a member of Trump’s staff, who claimed he knew about one of the affairs;
n So-called ‘catch and kill’ projects which allowed the tabloids to seek favours from celebrities including an unnamed British star, Tiger Woods and Arnold Schwarzenegger in return for burying potentially damaging allegations about them.
For many years the brash deliverer of scoops, The Enquirer this week found itself making, rather than breaking, the news.
Mr Howard and David Pecker, chairman of American Media
‘The volume of damaging stories was staggering’
the owner of The Enquirer, were both granted immunity from prosecution in exchange for information related to ‘hush money’ payments made to the porn star Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal by AMI and Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen. Both women claim to have had affairs with Trump – which he denies – and were both allegedly paid for their silence in the run-up to the 2016 US elections.
Trump has always vehemently denied all allegations of affairs and sexual misconduct levelled against him, dismissing the claims as ‘fake news’ and ‘lies’ spread by those seeking to discredit him.
In the case of McDougal, it is claimed that The Enquirer executed a ‘catch and kill’, whereby it paid money for her story without having any intention of publishing it in order to protect Trump.
Federal prosecutors are now examining whether Trump violated any of America’s strict campaign finance laws by approving the catch and kill payments to his alleged mistresses.
The involvement of The Enquirer emerged during a dramatic week in which Trump’s former lawyer Cohen – who arranged payments of $130,000 to Daniels and $150,000 to McDougal – pleaded guilty to eight charges, including campaign finance violations.
In a clear reference to Trump, Cohen said he had been directed to break federal election laws by ‘a candidate for federal office’.
In a further blow to the President, his former campaign manager Paul Manafort was last week found guilty of tax evasion and bank fraud.
And Allen Weisselberg, the chief financial officer of the Trump organisation, who is said to hold the key to the businessman’s financial and tax affairs, was also offered immunity from prosecution in return for cooperating with Special Counsel Robert Mueller.
It is Mueller’s probe into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election that triggered what former Enquirer bureau chief Jerry George called: ‘The implosion of the Trump presidency.’
Mr George, who worked for The Enquirer for 28 years, claimed: ‘Trump’s history of philandering was legendary.
‘In the days before David Pecker took over in 1999, Trump would get caught out having affairs... but he would trade stories with us, saying, “If you don’t run this about me, I can give you this story about one of my rich friends.”
‘He always had a certain type – porn stars, Playmates, beauty queens. Sometimes we worked with him, sometimes we didn’t.
‘He would ring up and offer stories on his celebrity friends and business associates in exchange for us killing negative stories about his philandering. All the files were stored in the Lantana warehouse, with contacts written down on paper the old-fashioned way – source notes, original copies of contracts and pay-offs if they were made.
‘Trump should be very worried about those files.
‘The Enquirer ended up becoming Trump’s private mouthpiece. The irony is The Enquirer could end up bringing him down.’
Trump, nicknamed ‘Teflon Don’ because of his ability to survive scandals, responded to last week’s setbacks in his characterInc, istically brash style. ‘I don’t know how you can impeach somebody who has done a great job,’ he told Fox News. ‘I will tell you what, if I ever got impeached, I think the [stock] market would crash.’ But former employees of The Enquirer, which sold more than four million copies in its heyday, believe Pecker could decide if Trump’s presidency crashes. ‘The Enquirer always had a bad rap, but it genuinely broke stories and held a place in American culture,’ one former staffer told the MoS. ‘It’s hard for people [outside the US] to understand but in America, a place so large and vast, there’s no real national newspaper. The National Enquirer filled a void. ‘It was at every supermarket checkout. For millions of Americans, particularly pre-internet, it was the only news they saw. ‘It had a real place in the popular culture of America. Love it or hate it, The Enquirer broke real news, lots of juicy scandals about celebrities and very often got it right. ‘People believed The Enquirer, which is why Trump wanted a part of it.’ But, according to sources, the culture changed after Pecker’s AMI acquired the magazine in 1999, with reporters told to go gentle on ‘FoPs’ – Friends of Pecker’s. And there was no bigger ‘friend’ than Donald Trump.
An insider claimed: ‘The company has staved off a few financial crises. Trump offered access to money and investors. Once he ran for President, Pecker became even more enamoured of him.
‘Trump offered a direct line to power, prestige and money. Pecker bragged about going to the White House.’
The Enquirer endorsed Trump for President – the first time it had ever officially backed a candidate – and ran a slew of negative stories about Mrs Clinton.
Enquirer reporters have alleged to this newspaper that ‘catch and kill’ became common for stories involving Trump.
Mr George added: ‘We didn’t just do it with Trump. We did it with a slew of celebrities.’
The Mail on Sunday has learned that the same approach was taken to alleged affairs involving Schwarzenegger, Woods and an unnamed British star.
‘Catch and kill was common practice,’ said a source. ‘We did it with a very well-known British TV personality.
‘He was involved in certain nefarious activities and it was all hushed up in return for him
‘He offered access to money and investors’
cooperating with interviews and stories.
‘With Trump, there was a history of catch and kill – at least a dozen women over the years were paid off.’ The Enquirer has not commented on the fresh claims but has previously insisted that stories were published solely on editorial judgment.
It also emerged this weekend that Dino Sajudin – a former doorman at Trump World Tower in New York – was paid $30,000 by The Enquirer after approaching the tabloid with a ‘rumour’ about Trump’s sex life.
While the claim is false, Sajudin passed a lie detector test arranged by The Enquirer, which proved he believed it to be true.
‘He was paid thirty grand for a story that wasn’t true. That was pretty good going,’ said Mr George.
On Friday night, Trump was in Ohio. Unbowed by the swirl of scandal, he told adoring supporters: ‘We won the election. We’re going to win again in 2020.’
The fate of the cache of ‘Trump files’ remains unknown. They were moved from Lantana to a safe in The Enquirer’s New York office, but a source told The Mail on Sunday that they are no longer there, having been collected the week before Trump’s inauguration.
‘They have been moved,’ the source added. ‘They may be in the hands of Robert Mueller. They may still be in Pecker’s possession. They may even have been shredded.’
For the sake of Trump’s presidency and legacy, he must surely be hoping the latter is true.