BREAKING: Federal prosecutors are reviewing the National Enquirer's handling of story about Bezos

[MelissaB]

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National Enquirer’s AMI Scrutinized Over Bezos Story, Sources Say

Federal prosecutors are reviewing the National Enquirer’s handling of its story about Jeff Bezos’ extramarital affair to determine if the company violated an earlier cooperation deal with prosecutors, according to two people familiar with the matter, Bloomberg News reports.

Prosecutors in the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office were provided with information about key exchanges concerning Bezos, the founder of Amazon.com Inc., who went public in a jaw-dropping public blog post Thursday night. In it, Bezos detailed exchanges with American Media Inc. and accused the company of extortion.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-02-08/national-enquirer-s-ami-scrutinized-over-bezos-story-sources-say?utm_medium=social&utm_content=politics&utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=socialflow-organic&cmpid%3D=socialflow-twitter-politics

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. Excellent.

[RockRaven]

2. I would LOVE to see all their cooperation material turned back around and used as evidence in

their own prosecution, after an appropriately arrived at official finding that they voided their agreement of course.

[fleur-de-lisa]

3. Oh my!

[Faux pas]

4. Rachel

was all over this last night. In my humble, non legal expert opinion, they've effed up their agreement with prosecutors.

[BigmanPigman]

18. That was a great point that she made on her show

last night. I was wondering what action would be taken for breaking their agreement (and the law). She said that the deal was NO illegal actions for years, like even ripping a tag off a mattress.

[Faux pas]

21. She's the best in mho.

What I don't understand is, why they can't do anything illegal for three years???? How about nothing illegal ever?! The system is rigged, for sure.

[uponit7771]

5. K&R, I'm thinking what AMI did was extortion ... just a bunch of crooks !! damn, everything is crook

[SMoss]

19. Everything tRump is crooked

He only lost the election by 3M votes. A lot of fools in America.

[Apollyonus]

6. Fantastic!!

Rachel Maddow talked about this last night.

Put Pecker in jail and bankrupt that horrid tabloid. Maybe Bezos will buy it out of bankruptcy as poetic justice.

[gldstwmn]

7. Wouldn't it be a hoot

If this is what took Orange down?

[lunatica]

10. Well it certainly isn't going to help him

Just thought I’d add an understatement!

Welcome to DU.

[LiberalFighter]

8. The Rachel laid it out last nite The National Enquirer (AMI) is cooked.

AMI has to be clean for at least 3 years. If investigation lasts longer than however long it takes for the Russia investigation.

They apparently don't need to convict them of extortion or bribery to end the non-prosecution agreement.

[getagrip_already]

9. Don't get too excited.....

These are the same folks that cut the deal to begin with. Why did they give him such a good deal?

Cohen had physical evidence, and there were other witnesses that proved pecker was involved and they could have just charged him.

So why the sweetheart deal?

There isn't any real evidence pecker could have given prosecutors to charge trump with. The prosecutors had plenty of evidence.

Someone's thumb was on that agreement. And it's still on the scales.

I'm not expecting to see the deal challenged by the prosecutors.

Sad and as infuriating as it may be.

[BumRushDaShow]

11. "Why did they give him such a good deal?"

Because their cooperation in that instance, reduced the amount of putzing around time that was needed to charge their bigger fish - Cohen. After that, they probably expected them to go about their other ridiculous scandalous business.

However this situation is a whole 'nother story that the average lower-level victim (usually "celebrities&quot might not have had the time or finances or reputation-saving to deal with.... I.e., by doing what they purportedly did, potentially with the help of a foreign entity (Saudi Arabia, according to various sources out there), brings their own business practices under some major suspicion. This went beyond "catch and kill" and into extortion.

[getagrip_already]

12. The only thing that makes me think otherwise....

Is they didn't need anything additional from pecker. They could have charged and convicted him as well. And cohen was already cooperating.

This smells like there is more to it. Sure, they let people cut deals all the time, but so far muehler and the sdny haven't cut immunity deals unless it was a VERY big fish. If they had given him 1 year, I wouldn't be suspicious.

But nothing for a deal this small is very suspicious. They didn't have to plead guilty. They just gave them imunity. That, in itself, is unusual.

He has something on someone high up in that office. And he is using it.

[BumRushDaShow]

14. Apparently according to Mueller, Cohen wasn't necessarily cooperating enough

However I think the idea was to try to dispense with the sordid tabloid stuff as quickly as possible and move on to other stuff. The tabloid issue was related to a violation of campaign finance rules.

Here is a copy of the agreement (scroll down) - https://www.cnbc.com/2018/12/12/federal-prosecutors-give-national-enquirer-publisher-immunity.html

It was pretty narrow in scope generally related to campaign finance violations however it has a provision about not "committing any crimes subsequent to signing" the agreement, and that is what everyone is seizing on - especially since the "victim" of a "new crime", not associated with campaign finance (or Cohen for that matter as far as we know) published the "smoking gun" documents establishing a "crime" was committed. Meanwhile Pecker is running around whining about how what he did was "legal".

[SunSeeker]

13. Bet that made Pecker pee himself.

[lark]

15. Real or fake?

Are they investigating this like they did Kavarape - that would be my first guess. Nothing ever done or ordered by drumpf is legal or above board, it's all got the goal of making him money or covering up crimes. IN this case he's covering up for the dirt his goons got on
Bezos and gave to Pecker and he's covering up Kusher & drumpf being complicit in the Khashoggi murder with MBS. If this is being done out of the Whittaker Justice Dept. guaranteed it's just a ploy that will exonerate Pecker and not even look at the drumpf angle.

If it's federal prosecutors out of SDNY, it could be a real investigation, so that's what I'm hoping for.

[BobTheSubgenius]

16. Enquiring minds want to know?

Honest minds want to throw up.

[neohippie]

17. I'm just going to place this here

Link to tweet

Here is a link to the rolled up thread about all of that


https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1093859179436101633.html

[MontanaMama]

20. Great link! Thank you

Check this out...maybe this is how the info was stolen from Bezos' phone??

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