Enquirer examined over Bezos claim of extortion
NEW YORK — Federal prosecutors are looking into the National Enquirer’s handling of a story about Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’ extramarital affair to see if the tabloid’s publisher violated a cooperation agreement with the government, two people familiar with the matter told the Associated Press on Friday.
Bezos claims the Enquirer’s publisher, American Media Inc., tried to extort and blackmail him. In an extraordinary blog post published Thursday on Medium.com, Bezos said AMI threatened to publish intimate photos of him unless he stopped investigating how the Enquirer obtained his private exchanges with his mistress.
Prosecutors now are looking at whether AMI violated an earlier agreement in which it promised not to break any laws in exchange for avoiding prosecution for campaign finance violations, the people familiar with the matter said. They spoke on condition of anonymity.
The high-profile clash has pitted the world’s richest man against the leader of America’s bestknown tabloid who is a strong backer of President Trump. Bezos’ investigators have suggested the Enquirer’s coverage of his affair was driven by dirty politics.
A spokesman for AMI did not immediately return a message seeking comment on the investigation, and the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan declined to comment.
Earlier Friday, AMI said it “acted lawfully” while reporting the story and that it engaged in “good faith negotiations” with Bezos.
Bezos, founder of Amazon and owner of the Washington Post, did not say the tabloid was seeking money — instead, he said, the Enquirer wanted him to make a public statement that its coverage was not politically motivated.
The company has admitted in the past that it engaged in what’s known as “catch-and-kill” practices to help Trump become president. Trump has been highly critical of Bezos and the Post’s coverage of the White House.
“Of course I don’t want personal photos published, but I also won’t participate in their wellknown practice of blackmail, political favors, political attacks, and corruption,” Bezos wrote of AMI, in explaining his decision to go public Thursday. “I prefer to stand up, roll this log over, and see what crawls out.”
The Bezos affair became public when the Enquirer published a Jan. 9 story about his relationship with Lauren Sanchez, a former TV anchor who is also married. Bezos then hired a team of private investigators to find out how the tabloid got the texts and photos the two exchanged.
Bezos’ personal investigators, led by his longtime security consultant, Gavin de Becker, concluded that Bezos’ phone wasn’t hacked. Instead, they’ve been focusing on Sanchez’s brother, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Several days ago, someone at AMI told Bezos’ team that the company’s CEO, David Pecker, was “apoplectic” about the investigation, Bezos said. AMI later approached Bezos’ representatives with an offer.
“They said they had more of my text messages and photos that they would publish if we didn’t stop our investigation,” Bezos wrote.
According to the emails, an attorney for AMI offered a formal deal Wednesday: The tabloid wouldn’t post the photos if Bezos and his investigators would release a public statement “affirming that they have no knowledge or basis” to suggest the Enquirer’s coverage was “politically motivated or influenced by political forces.”
Bezos said he decided to publish the emails sent to his team “rather than capitulate to extortion and blackmail,” despite the “personal cost and embarrassment they threaten.”