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syringis

(5,101 posts)
Thu Apr 12, 2018, 05:44 AM Apr 2018

The National Enquirer, a Trump Rumor, and Another Secret Payment to Buy Silence

I don't know how much this media is reliable.

However, getting into the weird, seems endless...

The National Enquirer, a Trump Rumor, and Another Secret Payment to Buy Silence
By Ronan Farrow3:19 A.M.
14-18 minutes

How the media organization protected the Presidential candidate early in his campaign.

David Pecker, the chairman and C.E.O. of A.M.I., has spoken publicly about his friendship with President Trump.

Late in 2015, a former Trump Tower doorman named Dino Sajudin met with a reporter from American Media, Inc., the publisher of the National Enquirer, at a McDonald’s in Pennsylvania. A few weeks earlier, Sajudin had signed a contract with A.M.I., agreeing to become a source and to accept thirty thousand dollars for exclusive rights to information he had been told: that Donald Trump, who had launched his Presidential campaign five months earlier, may have fathered a child with a former employee in the late nineteen-eighties. Sajudin declined to comment for this story. However, six current and former A.M.I. employees, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they feared legal retaliation by the company, said that Sajudin had told A.M.I. the names of the alleged mistress and child. Reporters at A.M.I. had spent weeks investigating the allegations, and Sajudin had passed a lie-detector test, during which he testified that high-level Trump employees, including Trump’s head of security, Matthew Calamari, had told him the story.

The New Yorker has uncovered no evidence that Trump fathered the child. A spokesperson for the Trump Organization denied the allegations, including the assertion that Calamari told Sajudin the story. When I reached out to the alleged daughter, she declined through a representative of her employer to answer questions. Her mother did not respond to repeated requests for comment. I spoke with the father of the family, who said that Sajudin’s claim was “completely false and ridiculous” and added that the Enquirer had put the family in a difficult situation. “I don’t understand what they had to pay this guy for,” he said. The New Yorker is not disclosing the family members’ names, out of respect for their privacy. Regardless of the veracity of Sajudin’s claims, legal experts said that A.M.I.’s payment to Sajudin is significant because it establishes the company’s pattern of buying and burying stories that could be damaging to Trump during the Presidential campaign.

Sajudin met the A.M.I. reporter at the McDonald’s that winter night to sign an amendment finalizing the transaction and adding a million-dollar penalty if the ex-doorman were to disclose the information without A.M.I.’s permission. According to a source with knowledge of the meeting, the two of them signed the amendment—an unexecuted copy of which was obtained by The New Yorker—and Sajudin remarked that it was going to be “a very merry Christmas.” Shortly after the company paid Sajudin, the chairman and C.E.O. of A.M.I., David Pecker, who has spoken publicly about his friendship with Trump, ordered the A.M.I. reporters to stop investigating, the sources told me. One of the employees involved said, “There’s no question it was done as a favor to continue to protect Trump from these potential secrets. That’s black-and-white.”

A.M.I.’s thirty-thousand-dollar payment to Sajudin appears to be the third instance of Trump associates paying to suppress embarrassing stories about the candidate during the 2016 Presidential race. In August, 2016, A.M.I. paid Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model, a hundred and fifty thousand dollars for her story about a nine-month affair with Trump, and then never published an article about it. (A.M.I. said her story was not credible.) In October, 2016, Trump’s personal attorney, Michael Cohen, paid Stephanie Clifford, an adult-film actress who performs under the name Stormy Daniels, a hundred and thirty thousand dollars to keep her account of an affair with Trump secret. (Clifford’s agreement was distinct from McDougal’s in that it was arranged directly with Cohen. A.M.I. was not party to the contracts between Cohen and Clifford that have been released.)

Two of the former A.M.I. employees said they believed that Cohen was in close contact with A.M.I. executives while the company’s reporters were looking into Sajudin’s story, as Cohen had been during other investigations related to Trump. “Cohen was kept up to date on a regular basis,” one source said. Contacted by telephone on Wednesday, Cohen said that he was not available to talk. Subsequent efforts to reach him were unsuccessful. On Monday, F.B.I. agents raided Cohen’s hotel and office. The Times reported that the agents were looking for records related to the payments to McDougal and Clifford, as well as correspondence between Cohen, Pecker, and Dylan Howard, A.M.I.’s chief content officer.

The White House declined to comment. A source close to the White House said that Trump “did not have an affair. This is a totally false accusation. And I’d refer you to A.M.I.”

Texts and e-mails from November of 2015 show that, before reporting was halted, the National Enquirer team was pursuing leads and trying to confirm Sajudin’s story. Reporters had staked out the homes of the alleged mother and daughter. The company had also hired an outside private investigator named Michael Mancuso, a former criminal investigator and the owner of Searching for the Truth Investigative Services, who administered the lie-detector test. (Mancuso declined a request for comment.) Lie-detector tests are notoriously flawed, and the test assessed only whether Sajudin had heard the story, not whether there was truth to the underlying claim.


The rest here :

https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-national-enquirer-a-donald-trump-rumor-and-another-secret-payment-to-buy-silence-dino-sajudin-david-pecker
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The National Enquirer, a Trump Rumor, and Another Secret Payment to Buy Silence (Original Post) syringis Apr 2018 OP
K&R Scurrilous Apr 2018 #1
Everyday more and more! democratisphere Apr 2018 #2
Hi Democratisphere syringis Apr 2018 #9
Hello syringis! How are things on the better side of the pond?! I hope well! democratisphere Apr 2018 #10
I wonder how Scarsdale Apr 2018 #3
Should not be... Mike Nelson Apr 2018 #4
K&R BlueJac Apr 2018 #5
Walk into a bar? Sailor65x1 Apr 2018 #6
It's like a buffet table.... kentuck Apr 2018 #7
When Stormy said Trump didn't wear a condom Farmer-Rick Apr 2018 #8

democratisphere

(17,235 posts)
2. Everyday more and more!
Thu Apr 12, 2018, 06:07 AM
Apr 2018

I guess time will tell on this one. I am amazed one guy can create all of this chaos, mess and destruction. It is mind boggling! Anyone still backing and supporting this creep, after all of THIS, is no better than he is AND that supporter is also completely insane.

syringis

(5,101 posts)
9. Hi Democratisphere
Thu Apr 12, 2018, 12:04 PM
Apr 2018

I gave up trying to figure out when these revelations will come to an end.

Each new one is more disgusting than the previous. ! Every morning, after I have read the news, I feel like a took a 2nd shower. A shower of manure....


democratisphere

(17,235 posts)
10. Hello syringis! How are things on the better side of the pond?! I hope well!
Thu Apr 12, 2018, 01:29 PM
Apr 2018

Everyday there is more added to his PILE! I don't think there are enough showers to wash away his chaos. There will eventually be an end to his insanity and we'll all look forward to that day! Keep those great OPs coming!

Scarsdale

(9,426 posts)
3. I wonder how
Thu Apr 12, 2018, 06:19 AM
Apr 2018

much they paid the mother of the child? I hope the child was fortunate enough to look like her mother (no matter HOW she looks) rather than another ugly mouthed tRump kid. What a sleazy excuse for a human being the gop/Russians installed into the WH.

Mike Nelson

(9,950 posts)
4. Should not be...
Thu Apr 12, 2018, 06:22 AM
Apr 2018

...a surprise. Both Stormy and Karen have stated Crooked Donald favors "unprotected" sex. So we know he's not "prolific" in conception... but, still, there are going to be many opportunities for conception.

Farmer-Rick

(10,151 posts)
8. When Stormy said Trump didn't wear a condom
Thu Apr 12, 2018, 08:56 AM
Apr 2018

And Trump claimed STDs were his own Vietnam, I suspected there were several little Trumpstes out there, along with some women who he infected.

I feel sorry for the children's mothers. Knowing Trump, some of those relationships were not consentual. Now that he's really old he will be creating children with genetic and psychological problems.

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