Jeff Bezos 'blackmail' claim of naked pictures, puts focus on National Enquirer links to Trump

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/feb/08/jeff-bezos-blackmail-national-enquirer-trump

A sprawling international scandal involving Jeff Bezos – the owner of Amazon and world’s richest man – and allegations of “extortion and blackmail” by a tabloid publisher threatened on Friday to also engulf Donald Trump as several key questions went unanswered.

Bezos alleges that David Pecker, the owner of the National Enquirer and a longtime friend of the US president, warned him he would publish revealing intimate photos of him unless he stopped investigating how the tabloid obtained text messages exposing his extramarital affair.

Pecker is the chief executive of American Media Inc (AMI), which said on Friday that it “acted lawfully” in its reporting on Bezos and that it would “thoroughly investigate” his claims of blackmail and take “whatever appropriate action is necessary”.

But Pecker is also close to Trump, and AMI has admitted in the past that it engaged in a practice known as “catch-and-kill” – suppressing potentially damaging stories – to help Trump become president. Trump has also waged a running of war of words against Bezos, owner of the Washington Post, which he frequently denounces as part of the “fake news media”.

The White House remained silent on the matter but two more threads raised questions about a potential association. In a TV interview, a Post reporter claimed that Bezos’s camp believes the National Enquirer’s conduct might have been politically motivated and that a “government entity” might have got hold of his text messages, though which government might be involved was not indicated.

Bezos himself, laying out his allegations in an extraordinary 2,000-word blogpost, noted that Pecker and AMI have been “investigated for various actions they’ve taken on behalf of the Saudi Government”. He added that “for reasons still to be better understood, the Saudi angle seems to hit a particularly sensitive nerve”.

It was not immediately clear why Bezos made the Saudi connection, but political commentators were quick to recall that Jamal Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist and critic of the Saudi government, was murdered at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, focusing often critical attention on Trump’s cosy relationship with the kingdom.

This is actually one of the most interesting pieces of news in awhile. So The National Inquirer which has links to the Saudi Kingdom and is currently under investigation by the FBI and Mueller due to them sending hush payments to Stormy Daniels (Trumps prostitute/pornstar) somehow obtained naked pictures of Bezo's which were stored on his phone and decided to extort him on the condition that The Washington Post stop being political motivated towards Trump.

What the Fu** is this?

Oh snap, 5 minutes after posting this breaking news. The FBI is now checking if The National Enquirer broke their cooperation deal.

Real talk though, how stupid do you have to be to blackmail someone via email?

What did Pecker think would come of this?

Mr. Pecker, purveyor of dick pics? How appropriate.

Yikes!

@blackballs: Did they really think Bezos would just pay and go quietly?

Lol, he’s the richest man in the world. Who gets there by being meek.

Serious miscalculation.

Reading about stuff like this makes me feel unclean; it's the whole dirty underbelly of politics and society.

A pecker.

lmao "Pecker".

That's the catch 22 about Trump. He says so many things that are irrefutably wrong that the action of simply reporting/correcting them makes it seem like everyone is biased against him.

And now, we have someone running in the Democratic side for 2020 ripping pages from Trump's playbook.

@nintendoboy16: May I ask,.....who?

Tulsi Gabbard. She's been attacking the media from when they reported that confirmed outlets funded by the Russian government (ex: Russia Today, or RT for short) have been praising her, calling them 'smears', already checking off one third of John Oliver's list of Trumpisms during his presidency (which are Delegitimize the Media, Whataboutism, and Trolling).

And just recently, she found her pundit/conspiracy theorist to run too like Trump did Alex Jones and Fox News (anyone that isn't Shep Smith at least):

I've found other reasons she reminds me of other slimeballs, even from the Republicans, but I'll take too long.

She's irrelevant though, and few want her to run. I doubt she'll even get into the primary debates.

What we said about Trump too. And look where we are now.

Yea, but Trump had huge support on the polls, republicans loved him right from the begging. The media just thought he was too crazy to win and the left.

I really don't know anyone who is rooting for her, and she's not even in the top 8, polling. The democratic party isn't the same as republicans, we still don't know the message that the party wants - but all signs are pointing to a moderate which is also open to some more left leaning policies. I can assure you it's either Harris, Sanders or Biden - with all of them picking Beto as VP (Beto isn't secure as a predication though, just saying he would be good.)

Yet hardly anyone batted an eyelash with CNN’s ties to the DNC.

And Fox New's ties to the RNC. What's your point?

Or Buzzfeed article which was proven untrue.

But the only reason this story blew up is that they can be tied to a certain person.

The story blew up because it involves the allegedly blackmailing the richest person in this solar system.

The other examples given by you two didn't.

welcome to 2019. it's like 2018 younger, stupider brother.

What Billionaire did CNN potentially extort and blackmail with dick picks because they were being investigated? Which federal prospectus got involved?

You understand why no one "batted an eyelash"....right?

Let´s take a look at the headline from the TS "

"Jeff Bezos 'blackmail' claim of naked pictures, puts focus on National Enquirer links to Trump"

But c'est la vie it´s not like Bezos is going to have sleepless nights over this.

Also considering he just lost half his fortune, he is not alone as the richest person in the "world"

But Fox News is a specific person. Same goes for CNN. :P

He's still 100x richer than Trump, whom don't even know if he's even rich anymore due to his connections to the Kremlin plus not releasing his tax returns.

Well that's your opinion. Several articles on this don't state Trump in the headline. I think it's huge news because it mostly involves extortion and blackmail of Jeff Bezos, who already makes headline news whether it involves Trump or not. Add in AMI/Pecker who already had a rough time with the whole Story Daniels fiasco, and it gets even jucier. Add in Trump and, yeah it's going to be bigger than some lame nothing burger CNN "scandal".

Certainly when you factor in Federal Prosecutors are being involved now.

Not really my opinion, I was just reading what the headline said and what most of the posts in the thread seem to be about.

fair enough you feel it´s big news, personally I could not care less if the National Enquirer goes bankrupt and people goes to jail, I have zero interest and never have any interest in a fake news gossip magazine where it´s all about pointless meaningless gossip.

why is world in quotes here?

Most networks and papers do.

I believe this will help with the discussion in some form or degree. This is sometimes how I get my news and the weekly recap of the Trump's presidency...

Most networks also blew up on the fake Buzzfeed story

Anyways let´s see where it goes.

Because why not.

i guess.

It was also meant as a joke, since half his fortune and whatever else the ex-wife gets, could make her richer than Bezos :D

Which is some way to break the glass ceiling and get on the Forbes top 5 worlds richest list :)