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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2019
Bezos: Enquirer threatened to publish revealing pics
By MICHAEL BALSAMO
and ZEKE MILLER
Associated Press
LOS ANGELES — Ama-
zon CEO Jeff Bezos said
Thursday he was the target of
“extortion and blackmail” by
the publisher of the National
Enquirer, which he said
threatened to publish reveal-
ing personal photos of him
unless he stopped investigat-
ing how the tabloid obtained
his private exchanges with
his mistress.
Bezos, who is also owner
of The Washington Post,
detailed his interactions with
American Media Inc., or
AMI, in an extraordinary blog
post Thursday on Medium.
com. The billionaire did not
say the tabloid was seeking
money — instead, he said,
the Enquirer wanted him to
make a public statement that
the tabloid’s coverage was
not politically motivated.
Bezos’ accusations add
another twist to a high-pro-
fi le clash between the world’s
richest man and the leader of
America’s best-known tab-
loid, a strong backer of Pres-
ident Donald Trump. Bezos’
investigators have suggested
the Enquirer’s coverage of his
affair — which included the
release of risque texts — was
driven by dirty politics.
“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 corrup-
tion,” Bezos wrote of AMI,
in explaining his decision to
go public. “I prefer to stand
up, roll this log over, and see
what crawls out.”
AMI said today it “acted
lawfully” while reporting the
story and will look into the
claims.
The company has admit-
ted in the past that it engaged
in what’s known as “catch-
and-kill” practices to help
Trump become president.
Trump has been highly crit-
ical of Bezos and the Post’s
coverage of the White House.
The Bezos affair became
AP Photo/Cliff Owen
Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos.
public when the Enquirer
published a Jan. 9 story about
his relationship with Lauren
Sanchez, a former TV anchor
who is also married. Bezos
then hired a team of private
investigators to fi nd out how
the tabloid got the texts and
photos the two exchanged.
Several days ago, some-
one at AMI told Bezos’ team
that the company’s CEO
David Pecker was “apo-
plectic” about the investiga-
tion, Bezos said. AMI later
approached Bezos’ represen-
tatives with an offer.
“They said they had more
of my text messages and pho-
tos that they would publish if
we didn’t stop our investiga-
tion,” Bezos wrote.
Bezos wrote that this week,
the tabloid’s editor, Dylan
Howard, emailed an attorney
for Bezos’ longtime security
consultant to describe photos
the Enquirer “obtained during
our newsgathering.” The
photos include a “below the
belt selfi e” of Bezos, photos
of him in tight boxer-briefs
and wearing only a towel,
and several revealing photos
of Sanchez, according to the
emails Bezos released.
According to the emails,
an attorney for AMI offered
a formal deal Wednesday:
The tabloid wouldn’t post the
photos if Bezos and his inves-
tigators would release a pub-
lic statement “affi rming that
they have no knowledge or
basis” to suggest the Enquir-
er’s coverage was “politically
motivated or infl uenced by
political forces.”
Bezos said he decided
to publish the emails sent to
his team “rather than capitu-
late to extortion and black-
mail,” despite the “personal
cost and embarrassment they
threaten.”
It does not appear that
AMI demanded any money
from Bezos — only that he
call off his investigation and
issue a statement saying the
coverage wasn’t political.
In its Jan. 9 story, the
Enquirer said reporters fol-
lowed Bezos and Sanchez
“across fi ve states and 40,000
miles” and “tailed them in
private jets, swanky limos,
helicopter rides, romantic
hikes, fi ve-star hotel hide-
aways, intimate dinner dates
and ‘quality time’ in hidden
love nests.”
It reported that Bezos sent
“sleazy text messages and
gushing love notes” to San-
chez, months before Bezos
announced he was splitting
up with his wife, MacKenzie.
The story carries the bylines
of Howard and two reporters.
But Bezos was suspicious
about how the tabloid could
have possibly gotten access
to his private exchanges.
Bezos usually stays out
of the public eye, frequently
delegating announcements
and public Amazon business
updates to his executives. He
doesn’t even speak on the
company’s quarterly fi nancial
earnings call with analysts.
His personal investigators,
led by his longtime security
consultant, Gavin de Becker,
concluded that Bezos’ phone
wasn’t hacked. Instead,
they’ve been focusing on
Sanchez’s brother, according
to a person familiar with the
matter.
De Becker and his team
suspect Michael Sanchez,
a talent manager who touts
his support of Trump and is
an acquaintance of Trump
allies Roger Stone and Carter
Page, may have provided the
information to the Enquirer,
the person said. The person
wasn’t authorized to discuss
the matter publicly and spoke
on condition of anonymity.
Sanchez, who is also his
sister’s manager, has declined
to speak with The Associ-
ated Press on the record and
did not immediately respond
to an email seeking com-
ment Thursday. In a tweet, he
said de Becker “spreads fake,
unhinged conservative con-
spiracy theories” and “’dog
whistle’ smears.”
AMI’s relationship with
Trump has gotten the com-
pany into hot water in the
past. It admitted to “catch-
and-kill” practices as part of a
deal with federal prosecutors,
who agreed to not pursue
charges against the company.
AMI
acknowledged
secretly assisting Trump’s
campaign
by
paying
$150,000 to a Playboy model
for the rights to her story
about an alleged affair with
the then-candidate. The com-
pany then intentionally sup-
pressed the story until after
the 2016 election.
In September, the Jus-
tice Department agreed to a
non-prosecution agreement
with AMI, which requires the
company and some top exec-
utives, including Pecker and
Howard, to cooperate with
authorities.
De Becker is now trying to
fi nd a way that federal prose-
cutors in Manhattan — where
the non-prosecution agree-
ment was signed — could
investigate the text message
scandal, the person familiar
with the matter said, though
it wasn’t immediately clear
what, if any, crime the prose-
cutors would be asked to look
into.
It is a federal crime to
threaten to injure someone’s
reputation in exchange for
money or a “thing of value,”
though federal courts haven’t
made it directly clear whether
a public statement, like the
one demanded by AMI, could
be considered something of
value.
Laurie Levenson, a former
federal prosecutor and pro-
fessor at Loyola Law School
in Los Angeles, said the alle-
gations potentially put pros-
ecutors in an awkward posi-
tion because of the deal they
had already cut with AMI.
“It shows how compli-
cated and dangerous it is
to make an agreement with
National Enquirer,” Leven-
son said. “They may have to
cooperate, but they’re con-
tinuing in their ongoing battle
with Bezos and others.”
But Levenson said it was
too diffi cult to tell if the case
amounted to blackmail or
extortion without additional
context and some prose-
cutors may be reluctant to
charge someone for threaten-
ing another with embarrass-
ing material.
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