Thread: David Pecker Granted Immunity In Michael Cohen Case

David Pecker Granted Immunity In Michael Cohen Case: Report

Maxwell Strachan
August 23, 2018

• 

David Pecker Granted Immunity In Michael Cohen Case: Report

Federal prosecutors have reportedly granted immunity to David Pecker, the


Federal prosecutors have reportedly granted immunity to David Pecker, the chief executive and chairman of American Media Inc., which publishes the National Enquirer, in the ongoing Michael Cohen investigation.

As part of the deal, Pecker agreed to provide information to prosecutors related to payments made to two alleged one-time sexual partners of President Donald Trump ― former Playboy model Karen McDougal and porn actress Stephanie Clifford, known professionally as Stormy Daniels ― in the lead up to the 2016 presidential election. Cohen and AMI allegedly helped coordinate both payments.

Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer and personal fixer, pleaded guilty earlier this week to two counts of violating federal campaign finance laws as a result of his role in the payments but said he did so at Trump’s direction. Because of the deal with prosecutors, Pecker will reportedly avoid criminal charges, as will chief content officer Dylan Howard.

Federal court documents filed in New York this week related to Cohen’s various misdeeds did not directly cite Pecker or AMI by name. But previous reporting made clear they were referred to as “Chairman-1” and “Corporation-1,” respectively. In the documents, prosecutors laid out the alleged efforts of Pecker and Howard to help Cohen “suppress” stories that might have otherwise hurt Trump on Election Day.

According to the court documents, Pecker and Cohen agreed to a coordinated campaign to suppress negative stories about Trump just two months after the now-president announced he would run for high office:

In or about August 2015, the Chairman and Chief Executive of Corporation-1 (“Chairman-1”), in coordination with MICHAEL COHEN, the defendant, and one of more members of the campaign, offered to help deal with negative stories about Individual-1′s relationships with women by, among other things, assisting the campaign in identifying such stories so they could be purchased and their publication avoided. Chairman-1 agreed to keep COHEN apprised of any such negative stories.

Pecker has long considered Trump a “personal friend,” and the National Enquirer drew public attention to itself during the campaign by publicly endorsing the former reality TV star.

But prosecutors in the Cohen case allege the support extended behind the scenes, where AMI kept Cohen abreast of potentially harmful stories and worked to keep them out of the public eye:

Consistent with the agreement described above, Corporation-1 advised MICHAEL COHEN, the defendant, of negative stories during the course of the campaign, and COHEN, with the assistance of Corporation-1, was able to arrange for the purchase of two stories so as to suppress them and prevent them from influencing the election.

Ultimately, Clifford received $130,000 from Cohen in exchange for the rights to her story about an alleged affair with Trump, while McDougal received $150,000 from AMI.

By the time the Wall Street Journal broke the news of McDougal’s affair, it was November 4, 2016, just four days before the presidential election. In a statement at the time, AMI said that it had “not paid people to kill damaging stories about Mr. Trump.”

Rather, AMI said it was interested in McDougal’s fitness columns and magazine covers, on top of the right to any story she might have had about an affair with a married man.

AMI did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/david-pec...c=bell-brknews

Michael Cohen admits violating campaign finance laws 'at direction of' Trump

Relationship between Trump, Enquirer goes beyond headlines

DAVID BAUDER and JEFF HORWITZ
,Associated Press•August 23, 2018

• 

NEW YORK (AP) — The plea deal reached by Donald Trump's former attorney Michael Cohen has laid bare a relationship between the president and the publisher of the National Enquirer that goes well beyond the tabloid's screaming headlines.

Besides detailing the tabloid's involvement in payoffs to porn star Stormy Daniels and Playboy Playmate Karen McDougal to keep quiet about alleged affairs with Trump, court papers showed how David Pecker, a longtime friend of the president and head of Enquirer parent company American Media Inc., offered to help Trump stave off negative stories during the 2016 campaign.

Court papers say that Pecker "offered to help deal with negative stories about (Trump's) relationships with women by, among other things, assisting the campaign in identifying such stories so they could be purchased and their publication avoided."

The accusations threaten Pecker's company, American Media Inc., both legally and in the court of public opinion.

The relationship between Trump and the Enquirer has been cozy for decades. Former National Enquirer employees who spoke to the AP said that negative stories about Trump were dead on arrival dating back to when he starred on NBC's reality show "The Apprentice."

In 2010, at Cohen's urging, the National Enquirer began promoting a potential Trump presidential candidacy, referring readers to a pro-Trump website Cohen helped create. With Cohen's involvement, the publication began questioning President Barack Obama's birthplace and American citizenship in print, an effort that Trump promoted for several years, former staffers said.

The Enquirer endorsed Trump for president in 2016, the first time it had ever officially backed a candidate. In the news pages, Trump's coverage was so favorable that the New Yorker magazine said the Enquirer embraced him "with sycophantic fervor."

Positive headlines for Trump were matched by negative stories about his opponents: an Enquirer front page from 2015 said "Hillary: 6 Months to Live" and accompanied the headline with a picture of an unsmiling Clinton with bags under her eyes.

Campaign finance laws generally prohibit corporations from cooperating with a campaign to affect an election, though media organizations are exempted from that restriction so long as they're performing a journalistic function. AMI's problem, said campaign finance expert Richard Hasen, is that Cohen's prosecutors don't appear to think hush money payments qualify as journalism.

"AMI and Pecker have not been charged, but they might be charged," he said. Though a novel legal case might be made that paying sources for silence is in fact standard tabloid reporting practice, he said, Cohen's plea agreement doesn't give that theory much weight.

The Cohen case outlined a tabloid strategy known as "catch and kill," or paying for exclusive rights to someone's story with no intention of publishing it in order to keep it out of the news altogether.

McDougal reached a deal to be paid $150,000 for her story about an alleged affair in 2006 and 2007, prosecutors said. Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, negotiated a $130,000 payment through Cohen for her story — and both were successfully buried until after the campaign.

When negotiations lagged on the Clifford deal shortly before the election, her lawyer told the Enquirer that she was close to reaching a deal with another outlet to tell her story. An editor at the tabloid, in turn, texted Cohen to say something needed to be done "or it could look awfully bad for everyone," according to court papers.

The deal was quickly reached, and Cohen agreed to make the payment.

In court on Tuesday, Cohen said that he had agreed to work with Pecker to make the deals "in coordination with, and at the direction of, a candidate for federal office" — clearly Trump.
AMI did not respond to requests for comment.

The accusations raise the question — can the Enquirer, indeed all of American Media, really be considered a media company when people become more familiar with its political activities?

Through an aggressive acquisition strategy, AMI has lately cornered a large part of the celebrity publication market. Besides tabloids like the Enquirer, Star and Globe, it also owns Us Weekly, In Touch and Life & Style.

"I think AMI is probably squirming," said Jerry George, a former editor at the Enquirer, on Wednesday. "They've painted themselves into a corner."

Despite a reputation for fanciful stories, the Enquirer has a history of some aggressive political reporting; the tabloid's stories on John Edwards and Gary Hart helped end the chances of both men becoming president.

The Enquirer's willingness to bend journalistic rules and potentially the law on Trump's behalf tarnishes that reputation, George said.

And while a juicy political scandal involving adult film star, hush money and the President of the United States might seem like ideal tabloid fare, the Enquirer is steering clear. On the tabloid's web site Wednesday, the emphasis was on celebrity news — an old story about feuding on the set of "Golden Girls" and squabbling between Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/relations...125245832.html

National Enquirer Reportedly Kept a Safe of Trump Secrets, Promoted Birtherism ‘With Cohen’s Involvement’

by Aidan McLaughlin | Aug 23rd, 2018, 6:39 pm 1623



According to a bombshell new report from theAssociated Press, The National Enquirer had a safe that contained “documents on hush money payments and other damaging stories it killed as part of its cozy relationship with Donald Trump.”

The tabloid also touted the racist “birther” conspiracy theory about President Barack Obama, per AP, at the urging of former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen.

The story comes hours after it was reported that David Pecker, the head of the National Enquirer, was granted immunity by federal prosecutors investigating Cohen’s payments to two women claiming to have had affairs with Trump.

American Media Inc., the publisher of the Enquirer, purchased the affair story of Playboy model Karen McDougal in 2016 for $150,000 and killed it.
Sources told AP that the safe, which contained documents related to a series of hush money payments, “was a great source of power for Pecker.”
AP explained:

The Trump records were stored alongside similar documents pertaining to other celebrities’ catch-and-kill deals, in which exclusive rights to people’s stories were bought with no intention of publishing to keep them out of the news. By keeping celebrities’ embarrassing secrets, the company was able to ingratiate itself with them and ask for favors in return.

AP reported that Pecker removed the contents of the safe after reports began to surface about the catch-and-kill deals, though it is unknown whether they were destroyed.

The Enquirer also reportedly spiked negative stories about Trump, while promoting the racist birther theory about Obama:

Former Enquirer employees who spoke to the AP said that negative stories about Trump were dead on arrival dating back more than a decade when he starred on NBC’s reality show “The Apprentice.”

In 2010, at Cohen’s urging, the National Enquirer began promoting a potential Trump presidential candidacy, referring readers to a pro-Trump website Cohen helped create. With Cohen’s involvement, the publication began questioning President Barack Obama’s birthplace and American citizenship in print, an effort that Trump promoted for several years, former staffers said.

Read the full report here.

https://www.mediaite.com/print/natio...s-involvement/

Top Trump Organization official Weisselberg granted immunity in Cohen investigation