Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos has accused the publisher of the tabloid National Enquirer, who has been described as a close friend of President Donald Trump, of trying to blackmail him over lurid photos.
Bezos, the world’s richest person, owns the Washington Post, a frequent target of Trump as he assails the US media as “enemy of the people” and a source of fake news.
The Post was also one of the leading news outlets in coverage of the murder last year of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a Post columnist.
Trump has refused to criticise Saudi Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman, who has been widely accused of ordering the murder.
Last month Trump took aim at Bezos – referring to him as “Bozo” – in what appeared to be an allusion to National Enquirer reporting of the billionaire’s relationship with former news anchor and entertainment reporter Lauren Sanchez.
“So sorry to hear the news about Jeff Bozo being taken down by a competitor whose reporting, I understand, is far more accurate than the reporting in his lobbyist newspaper, the Amazon Washington Post,” he tweeted. “Hopefully the paper will soon be placed in better & more responsible hands!”
The National Enquirer accessed private text messages and last month reported that Bezos had an extramarital affair with Sanchez – a leak that led to his divorce.
On Thursday, Bezos said the tabloid’s parent company had threatened to publish intimate photographs that he sent to his mistress.
In a post on the online platform Medium, Bezos said Enquirer publisher American Media Incorporated (AMI), led by David Pecker, a friend of Trump, had threatened to publish the photos if he did not halt an investigation into the motives behind the leak.
The Enquirer had demanded that he and security consultant Gavin de Becker, who is leading the probe, publicly state they had “no knowledge or basis for suggesting that AMI’s coverage was politically motivated or influenced by political forces”, Bezos added.
De Becker mentioned in a recent Daily Beast interview that “strong leads point to political motives” – and that he was interested in Lauren Sanchez’s brother Michael, a vocal supporter of Trump with links to his inner circle, as a possible perpetrator.
In his Medium post, Bezos pointed to AMI and Pecker’s previous co-operation with Trump – including payments made to suppress negative stories, currently under investigation by federal prosecutors.
One involves a former Playboy model who said she had an affair with Trump.
The payment, and a similar one to another woman, was made on the eve of Trump’s 2016 presidential election victory.
Trump is suspected of campaign finance violations because of the disbursements on grounds they were made to affect the outcome of the vote and should therefore have been reported to government campaign monitors.
In a deal announced with federal prosecutors late last year, AMI said it would co-operate with those prosecutors.
It admitted that before the election it had paid $150,000 to the ex-model, Karen McDougal, to silence her allegations of an affair with Trump.
Prosecutors said they would not charge AMI.
Bezos, his newspaper and Amazon are all regular targets of Trump on Twitter.
Bezos, in his post, also raised what he called AMI’s links to Saudi Arabia.
“My ownership of the Washington Post is a complexifier for me. It’s unavoidable that certain powerful people who experience Washington Post news coverage will wrongly conclude I am their enemy,” Bezos wrote in the blog post.
“President Trump is one of those people, obvious by his many tweets. Also, the Post’s essential and unrelenting coverage of the murder of its columnist Jamal Khashoggi is undoubtedly unpopular in certain circles.”
He added: “Rather than capitulate to extortion and blackmail, I’ve decided to publish exactly what they sent me, despite the personal cost and embarrassment they threaten,” Bezos wrote.
His post, entitled No thank you, Mr Pecker, included copies of e-mails from AMI.
“Of course I don’t want personal photos published, but I also won’t participate in their well-known practise of blackmail, political favours, political attacks, and corruption. I prefer to stand up, roll this log over, and see what crawls out,” Bezos added.
Yesterday the owner of the National Enquirer pushed back against Bezos’s accusations of “extortion and blackmail”, saying its reporting on an extramarital affair involving the world’s richest man was lawful and it would investigate his claims.
“American Media believes fervently that it acted lawfully in the reporting of the story of Mr Bezos,” the company said in a statement.
AMI said that at the time of Bezos’s allegations, it was “in good faith negotiations to resolve all matters with him”.
“In light of the nature of the allegations published by Mr Bezos, the Board has convened and determined that it should promptly and thoroughly investigate the claims. Upon completion of that investigation, the Board will take whatever appropriate action is necessary,” it added.
A newspaper vendor on Third Avenue in midtown New York City displays a copy of the National Enquirer at his newstand.
