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posted by martyb on Friday February 08 2019, @08:31AM   Printer-friendly
from the bare-facts dept.

Jeff Bezos Accuses National Enquirer of Blackmail

Jeff Bezos, Amazon's chief executive and the world's richest man, accused the owner of The National Enquirer on Thursday of trying "extortion and blackmail" to stop his investigation into how his private text messages and photos with his mistress were leaked to the tabloid.

In an extraordinarily personal online post, Mr. Bezos said intermediaries of David Pecker, the chairman of American Media Inc., the nation's biggest tabloid news publisher and owner of The National Enquirer, had approached him to stop his investigation. Mr. Bezos said he had been told that if he refused, the publisher would make risqué and intimate photos of the billionaire and his mistress, Lauren Sanchez, public.

[...] "Of course I don't want personal photos published, but I also won't participate in their well-known practice of blackmail, political favors, political attacks and corruption," Mr. Bezos wrote of A.M.I., explaining why he had decided to speak out. "I prefer to stand up, roll this log over and see what crawls out."


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  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 08 2019, @02:56PM (4 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 08 2019, @02:56PM (#798307)

    I'm much more interested in knowing the reason that they don't want him to find out how they got a hold of his texts and messages, particularly if they are willing to go as far as trying to blackmail him. This doesn't sound like your regular scummy tactics from hiring a qustionable investigation firm, like they normally do.

    Let's see, does Pecker have any friends in high places that could have given him support, you know, someone that he tries to be particularly loyal to? Perhaps someone who is particularly envious of Bezos and is someone who particularly hates Bezos?

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 08 2019, @03:08PM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 08 2019, @03:08PM (#798316)

    Bezos forgets that he has Powerful Enemies. When your enemy is Trump, there are millions of MAGA hats, independently working to bring you down.

    It doesn't help that you own the WashPost and are a filthy monopolist.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 08 2019, @03:33PM (2 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 08 2019, @03:33PM (#798339)

      All true, but why are they so afraid of their methods getting out?

      • (Score: 4, Interesting) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday February 08 2019, @04:28PM (1 child)

        by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Friday February 08 2019, @04:28PM (#798379) Homepage

        Say, hypothetically, that Trump has ordered the NSA to monitor Bezos' phone and acquire the filthy blackmail (like possibly happened to Weinstein). If they call Trump on it and are somehow able to prove it, then they have to acknowledge that it has been going on for a long period of time and possibly under other administrations or abused by other lawmakers for personal or blackmail reasons. Anyway, there are probably so many goddamn rogue-agents in our intelligence services you don't know who is for who and what is for what. They all just kinda do whatever the fuck they want now, the dogs are unleashed. A war of all against all.

        Muthafuckin' Trump be like, "Go ahead buddy, I'll do it, I'll fucking do it!"

        • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 08 2019, @05:15PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 08 2019, @05:15PM (#798411)

          Ah, I think this is the key, from this article [thehill.com].

          Bezos in the Medium post accused AMI of threatening him after Pecker discovered he had initiated an investigation into the Enquirer. He wrote that they were threatening to publish the photos unless he ended the investigation and made a public statement claiming he had "no knowledge or basis for suggesting that AMI’s coverage was politically motivated or influenced by political forces."

          Bezos also suggested that Pecker was upset by The Washington Post's coverage of the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

          AMI last year agreed to cooperate with federal prosecutors after admitting that it paid $150,000 to a woman "in concert with" Trump's campaign "in order to ensure that the woman did not publicize damaging allegations about the candidate before the 2016 presidential election."

          The agreement stated that AMI “shall commit no crimes whatsoever” for three years or it would be "subject to prosecution for any federal criminal violation of which this office has knowledge," according to The New York Times.

          Don't worry, though, Pecker says he's going to get to the bottom of it! Rogue reporters, no doubt. "Don't worry, we've fired them for violating our stringent ethics policies. No need to investigate further!"