National Enquirer reportedly paid hush money to protect Trump while facing financial hardship
Source: think progress
The tabloid's parent company has been suffering from falling revenue, ballooning debt and low sales, according to financial documents.
Apr 19, 2018, 3:27 pm
American Media Inc. (AMI), The National Enquirers parent company, has been suffering ballooning debt, falling revenue and shrinking newsstand sales at its print magazines, a Wall Street Journal report revealed on Thursday. However, that financial hardship didnt affect its ability to pay alleged hush-money to individuals who reportedly had damaging information about President Trump.
According to the report, which cited nonpublic AMI financial reports, AMI experienced a decline of 9 percent from fiscal year 2016 to 2017, and a drop of 29 percent from 2014.
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None of that has stopped AMI or The National Enquirer from making payments that effectively amounted to hush money, to keep at least two separate individuals from going public with information damaging to Trump, who is close friends with AMI CEO David Pecker and received the Enquirers endorsement during the 2016 election.
In August 2016, former Playboy model Karen McDougal received $150,000 from AMI for exclusive rights to her story about an affair she claims to have had with Trump from 2006 to 2007. The contract also prevented McDougal from speaking publicly about the alleged affair. The media company later claimed it had paid McDougal for a series of fitness columns and magazine covers and not for her account of the alleged affair..........................................
Read more: https://thinkprogress.org/national-enquirer-facing-financial-hardship-e436ce2b50d3/
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sandensea
(21,529 posts)Lock'em up!
cstanleytech
(26,080 posts)calimary
(80,699 posts)Their front pages have shrieked against Hillary and Bill for years, and fawned and slobbered over trump and his family shamelessly for the last few years.
Low sales?
Gee... guess even the great unwashed aren't clamoring to snap up every last copy of the Enquirer to read all about how wonderful those trumps are and how unfair it is that they're under siege these days. Boo-hoo.
UpInArms
(51,252 posts)At the grocery stores when I see it ... cannot abide their lying screaming headlines while I wait to check out ... makes my blood pressure rise
Orange Free State
(611 posts)I could not think of any other media company Id rather see broke, besides Fox and Sinclair. Oh please let them go out of business.....
calimary
(80,699 posts)I remember seeing reports of that kind of subtle activism at bookstores when some GOP SOB came out with a new book.
Orange Free State
(611 posts)Wonder if any of those damn fools bought one by mistake? They were slightly different sizes or I would have switched some dust covers too.....
mr_lebowski
(33,643 posts)That is EXACTLY what this country needs, BADLY, is for assholes like NE, Hannity, Jones, et al ... to start paying heavy penalties for their slander of 'enemies' and protection of their friends by lying and pay-outs to silence the truth.
Bernardo de La Paz
(48,788 posts)RhodeIslandOne
(5,042 posts)dalton99a
(81,068 posts)meadowlander
(4,358 posts)kskiska
(27,041 posts)was publishing photos of gruesome accidents esp. decapitations, and farm animals with two heads or more than the usual number of limbs. From there they went to lurid celebrity gossip, until Trump came on the scene, and now it's dirty politics.
wishstar
(5,267 posts)The way they so blatantly ignored all of the legitimate Trump entanglements and controversies while pushing obviously false made-up stuff against Clintons and Obamas probably hurt their sales.