Amazon’s Jeff Bezos Calls Out National Enquirer Owner for “Blackmail”

So if you were to put up David Pecker (CEO of American Media Inc., parent company of grocery store trash mag, The National Enquirer) against Jeff Bezos (founder and CEO of Amazon, richest man in the world) in a no-holds-barred fantasy cage match, my money would be on Bezos.

You don’t mess with the Bezos.

With that in mind, the saga of Bezos affair, along with his divorce from wife, MacKenzie, which was splashed all over the cover of the Enquirer in January, has taken a sudden, dramatic leap forward.

Bezos, in a social media post on Thursday is accusing Pecker of extortion and blackmail.

Apparently, Bezos, with his vast resources, began an investigation into how the news of his affair and divorce made it to the pages of the tabloid.

He and his wife announced their impending divorce the day before the story dropped, so they knew it was coming and moved to head it off.

 In an extraordinarily personal online post, Mr. Bezos said intermediaries of David Pecker, the chairman of American Media Inc., the nation’s biggest tabloid news publisher and owner of The National Enquirer, had approached him to stop his investigation. Mr. Bezos said he had been told that if he refused, the publisher would make risqué and intimate photos of the billionaire and his mistress, Lauren Sanchez, public.

“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 corruption,” Mr. Bezos wrote of A.M.I., explaining why he had decided to speak out. “I prefer to stand up, roll this log over and see what crawls out.”

That’s bold. He’s basically saying to the tabloid, “Let’s see what you’ve got, but remember, it’s my turn, then.”

I mean, let’s be honest. The world already knows he was having an affair with a married woman. They already know it ruined his marriage. They know he’s probably going to end up giving half of his fortune to the wife. What can they do to him with photos, at this point?

In recent interviews, including with The Daily Beast and The Washington Post, Mr. Bezos’ private security consultant, Gavin de Becker, said he was investigating whether Ms. Sanchez’s brother, who has said he supports President Trump, may have been behind the leak for political reasons. Mr. Trump has long criticized Mr. Bezos, who owns The Post.

So was this a MAGA world revenge attack?

President Trump really doesn’t like Jeff Bezos.

Bezos is a self-made billionaire, who didn’t have a wealthy daddy to bail him out or pay his way. He got to his current status by ingenuity and hard work – things Trump can’t even spell.

In his Twitter post, Bezos includes an entry he wrote for Medium, entitled “No thank you, Mr. Pecker.”

In the post, he tells everything, and includes the email from the Chief Content officer for AMI, Dylan Howard, to Martin Singer, the litigation counsel for Gavin de Becker.

There’s no way to read this and not take it as a threat.

I’ve written a post about developments with the National Enquirer and its parent company, AMI. You can find it here: https://t.co/G1ykJAPPwy

— Jeff Bezos (@JeffBezos) February 7, 2019

And you’ve got to love that Bezos didn’t bother to redact the guy’s email address in his post.

From: Howard, Dylan [dhoward@amilink.com] (Chief Content Officer, AMI)
Sent: Tuesday, February 5, 2019 3:33 PM
To: Martin Singer (litigation counsel for Mr. de Becker)
Subject:. Jeff Bezos & Ms. Lauren Sanchez Photos

CONFIDENTIAL & NOT FOR DISTRIBIUTION

Marty:

I am leaving the office for the night. I will be available on my cell — 917 XXX-XXXX.

However, in the interests of expediating this situation, and with The Washington Post poised to publish unsubstantiated rumors of The National Enquirer’s initial report, I wanted to describe to you the photos obtained during our newsgathering.

In addition to the “below the belt selfie — otherwise colloquially known as a ‘d*ck pick’” — The Enquirer obtained a further nine images. These include:

• Mr. Bezos face selfie at what appears to be a business meeting.
• Ms. Sanchez response — a photograph of her smoking a cigar in what appears to be a simulated oral sex scene.
• A shirtless Mr. Bezos holding his phone in his left hand — while wearing his wedding ring. He’s wearing either tight black cargo pants or shorts — and his semi-erect manhood is penetrating the zipper of said garment.
• A full-length body selfie of Mr. Bezos wearing just a pair of tight black boxer-briefs or trunks, with his phone in his left hand — while wearing his wedding ring.
• A selfie of Mr. Bezos fully clothed.
• A full-length scantily-clad body shot with short trunks.
• A naked selfie in a bathroom — while wearing his wedding ring. Mr. Bezos is wearing nothing but a white towel — and the top of his pubic region can be seen.
• Ms. Sanchez wearing a plunging red neckline dress revealing her cleavage and a glimpse of her nether region.
• Ms. Sanchez wearing a two-piece red bikini with gold detail dress revealing her cleavage.

It would give no editor pleasure to send this email. I hope common sense can prevail — and quickly.

Dylan.

I also love that Mr. Howard put “Confidential & Not For Distribution” in big, bolded letters – a demand Bezos promptly ignored.

It was a true GOAT move, preceded by this explanation:

In the AMI letters I’m making public, you will see the precise details of their extortionate proposal: They will publish the personal photos unless Gavin de Becker and I make the specific false public statement to the press that we “have no knowledge or basis for suggesting that AMI’s coverage was politically motivated or influenced by political forces.”

If we do not agree to affirmatively publicize that specific lie, they say they’ll publish the photos, and quickly. And there’s an associated threat: They’ll keep the photos on hand and publish them in the future if we ever deviate from that lie.

Be assured, no real journalists ever propose anything like what is happening here: I will not report embarrassing information about you if you do X for me. And if you don’t do X quickly, I will report the embarrassing information.

So what is he talking about?

Well, it involves Bezos’ media entity, The Washington Post.

WaPo is the second Bezos business that Donald Trump hates.

This part will be of interest to those who are still outraged at the lukewarm response of the Trump administration to the murder of U.S.-based journalist, Jamal Khashoggi:

AMI, the owner of the National Enquirer, led by David Pecker, recently entered into an immunity deal with the Department of Justice related to their role in the so-called “Catch and Kill” process on behalf of President Trump and his election campaign. Mr. Pecker and his company have also been investigated for various actions they’ve taken on behalf of the Saudi Government.

And sometimes Mr. Pecker mixes it all together:

“After Mr. Trump became president, he rewarded Mr. Pecker’s loyalty with a White House dinner to which the media executive brought a guest with important ties to the royals in Saudi Arabia. At the time, Mr. Pecker was pursuing business there while also hunting for financing for acquisitions…”

He went on to say how legitimate media has long known of, and reported of how Pecker uses AMI and The National Enquirer for political reasons. This is a claim Pecker adamantly denies.

Was this a threat from Pecker?

It sounds like it.

The question remains as to If anyone put him up to it, however.

Jeff Bezos seems to think so.