What Did the National Enquirer Know and When Did They Know It?

[fraurosena]

Am I too much of a conspiracy theorist if I suggest that ms. Sanchez herself could have been a plant to get information from Bezos? It's so strange that her brother had access to her texts. Because I don't know about you guys, but although I get along pretty fine with my brother, he does not have access to my phone, let alone my personal texts. And Sanchez got her personal texts to her lover? How? Something doesn't add up.

[Howl]

OK, reading the Maureen Dowd piece in the New York Times.  

Maureen Dowd: Daddy Warbucks goes to War

@fraurosena, this nugget was buried at the end. 

Quote

The Post reported that Michael Sanchez, Lauren’s brother who says he is also her manager — 

 They used one of my favorite words *louche* to describe the pictures that Bezos and Lauren sent to each other.  Louche means (basically) sleazy, but in an appealing or rakish way. 

<snip>  Scott Galloway is author of  “The Four: The Hidden DNA of Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google

Spoiler

As Galloway told me: “The second-worst decision in the last 12 months was the world’s wealthiest man sending out pictures of his genitalia. The worst decision was A.M.I. deciding to attempt to blackmail the wealthiest man in the world via email. Dumb and dumber.

“A.M.I. went out of business this week. They just don’t know it. They have a megalodon after them.”

Galloway thinks that Bezos vs. Pecker will mimic Thiel vs. Gawker: “The same hubris infected Gawker, wrapping yourself in the First Amendment as an excuse for depraved behavior and ruining people’s lives.

 

[AmazonGrace]

Seems to me that if you have to ask the question it probably means you know you are

[Cartmann99]

6 hours ago, fraurosena said:

Am I too much of a conspiracy theorist if I suggest that ms. Sanchez herself could have been a plant to get information from Bezos? It's so strange that her brother had access to her texts. Because I don't know about you guys, but although I get along pretty fine with my brother, he does not have access to my phone, let alone my personal texts. And Sanchez got her personal texts to her lover? How? Something doesn't add up.

She could very well be in on it, but it's also in the realm of possibility that she just didn't secure her phone as well as she should have. Since he was her brother, she probably trusted him. For instance, if she went over to his home, she might not have thought anything about leaving her phone unattended while she went to the bathroom. If her phone was locked with a PIN, knowing her mom's old phone number could be all it took for someone to gain access. If she was in the foolish habit of leaving it unlocked, then it would take even less time for someone to find the compromising texts. 

No matter how this story turns out, all of us need to be extra vigilant about securing our phones from those who are out to hurt us.

[Howl]

Someone suggested that Lauren's brother Michael could have "borrowed" her phone "to make a call" and installed malware that gave him access to and the ability to download everything on Lauren's phone.  

From this twitter thread by Juliette Kayem, who is connected with Secret Service and CIA types who now provide security for the ultra wealthy: 

Quote

"People like Bezos don't 'lose' their phones," one said, explaining that there are mechanisms in place to erase and shut systems down immediately if the VIP's phone/computer/cyber footprint go missing. And someone like Bezos has extensive cyber protections that would withstand most (but not all) hacking attempts. 

Fascinating thread if you want to read the entire thing: 

 

[Howl]

Great piece by Will Bunch--speculating on how all the pieces might fit together. 

Bezos, the National Enquirer, the Saudis, Trump, and the blackmailing of U.S. democracy

 

 

 

[Howl]

Fascinating article that I'm putting here because it relates to the Israeli NSO Group selling its Pegasus spyware to governments, allowing them to spy on their citizens' phones.  There is some speculation that this technology was how Lauren Sanchez' phone was hacked.  But it's way much more complicated and crazy

 <snip>  

Spoiler

When mysterious operatives lured two cybersecurity researchers to meetings at luxury hotels over the past two months, it was an apparent bid to discredit their research about an Israeli company that makes smartphone hacking technology used by some governments to spy on their citizens. The Associated Press has now learned of similar undercover efforts targeting at least four other individuals who have raised questions about the use of the Israeli firm’s spyware.

This is better than any Bond movie: private investigators, covert operatives, fake websites, spies, big money.  Full text here. 

AP Exclusive: Undercover spy exposed in NYC was 1 of many

For context, the phone of a Khashoggie friend in Canada was hacked by Saudis, with likelihood the Saudis used NSO Group's Pegasus technology, which can uncloak WhatsApp communications. 

Related to the Will Bunch linked in my previous post: How a hacked phone may have led killers to Khashoggi

[Howl]

This is a great comfort to me:  Before Bezos Fight, Enquirer Publisher AMI Faced Steep Losses

AMI went on a borrowing and acquisitions binge, and have been in the red since last Sept.  

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[AmazonGrace]

How is it not bankrupt already? Is there dark income, foreign bribes and such?

[Howl]

I'm guessing that the National Enquirer hasn't published more Lauren/Jeff photos and texts.  Pecker's personal net worth is declining rapidly while his lawyers can buy a new yacht and are checking out second and  third houses in the Hamptons and Aspen, along with a bigger jet to get there.  

I so hope to hear from Mueller that Pecker's plea deal is in the shitter via 5 am raids on the NE offices and Pecker's private residence.  Pecker's probably consuming half of the Xanax supply on the East Coast. 

[GreyhoundFan]

I'd be mighty unhappy if I were a California government employee:

 

[AmazonGrace]

"Sources" saying that National Enquirer paid Michael Sanchez $250K for the sexts.

Wonder with whose money.

[Howl]

Yet another plot twist in this saga: 

Saudis Hacked Jeff Bezos’ Phone For Texts Also Used In Enquirer Story: Investigator   Gavin De Becker said he and others “concluded with high confidence that the Saudis had access to Bezos’ phone.”

Gavin De Becker is  the heavy-hitter outside investigator hired by Bezos.  You may also recall that a close friend of Jamal Khashoggi is sure that the Saudi's used software developed by the Israeli NSO Group that can spy directly on any phone, even when using encryption apps like WhatsApp.  He is so certain of this that he's suing the NSO Group.  There seems to be some belief that the Saudis are using the actual software.  I can only imagine how much money the Saudis would pay to get access to that technology or to bribe someone to use it on their behalf.  

Israeli software company 'shared hacked messages' from Khashoggi with Saudi, lawsuit claims

This article, which interviews Jamal Khashoggi's Canadian friend, sheds some light on the plans they had to disrupt MBS's brutal regime of terror.  It's not surprising that Jamal was murdered.  I'll cross post this to the Jamal Khasoggi thread. 

[Howl]

Yet again, I'm cross posting between The Enquirer thread and the Khashoggi/Saudi Arabia thread because they are completely intertwined; they can't be separated. 

(I was in error in my previous post. Gavin De Becker has been Bezos' investigator for 20+ years; he's not an outside investigator.)

Bezos Investigation Finds the Saudis Obtained His Private Data  The National Enquirer’s lawyer tried to get me to say there was no hacking.

This is Gavin De Becker's article posted on The Daily Beast on Saturday, March 30, summarizing the whole rodeo.  He notes that AMI/The Enquirer/David Pecker were pushing the Michael Sanchez hard as the source of the leaked texts, not trying to cover it up.  He also notes that Bezos' texts/emails/phone were hacked BEFORE AMI/The Enquirer/David Pecker were pushing Michael Sanchez as the leaker/source for the texts and De Becker confirms that the Saudis hacked Bezos' phone. 

He also notes that Michael Sanchez (Lauren Sanchez' brother) is an "associate" of Carter Page and Roger Stone.  Truly, you can't make this stuff up. 

[GreyhoundFan]

"National Enquirer expected to be sold imminently as parent company faces pressure"

Spoiler

American Media Inc. is actively seeking to sell off the National Enquirer, according to three people familiar with the process who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

The decision to sell came after the hedge fund manager whose firm controls American Media became “disgusted” with the Enquirer’s reporting tactics, according to one of these people.

American Media (AMI) has been under intense pressure because of to the Enquirer’s efforts to tilt the 2016 presidential election in favor of Donald Trump, who is a longtime friend of American Media’s president and CEO, David Pecker. Pecker and his supermarket tabloid has also been embroiled in recent months in an unusually public feud with Jeff Bezos, who also owns The Washington Post.

In August, just as AMI and two of its top officers were finalizing a non-prosecution agreement with federal investigators, the company’s board of directors started looking for ways to unload the tabloid business “because they didn’t want to deal with hassles like this anymore,” another person said.

The company was also facing financial difficulty as it sought to refinance more than $400 million in debt earlier this year and as the Enquirer’s circulation continued to decline, along with broader newsstand trends. The paper sold an average of 516,000 copies per issue in 2014, but that number fell to 218,000 in December, according to data compiled by the Alliance for Audited Media.

American Media was “very, very leveraged” and repeatedly found itself “on the brink,” Pecker told the Toronto Star in 2016. Pecker managed the company’s financial straits by broadening American Media’s portfolio in recent years, buying magazines such as Us Weekly and In Touch. He has also relied on the support of Anthony Melchiorre, who controls the $4 billion hedge fund Chatham Asset Management, which holds an 80 percent stake in the Enquirer’s parent company.

The decision to sell the tabloid resulted in part from pressure applied by Melchiorre, according to two of the people familiar with the discussions. He was motivated partly by the financial difficulties of the tabloid business, but also by his distaste for the Enquirer’s tactics. A representative from Chatham declined to comment, and Melchiorre did not respond to a call seeking comment.

The tabloid has long been known for its questionable methods; in 1977, it published a photo of Elvis Presley’s corpse on its cover and sold close to 7 million copies. In 2007, in possibly its highest journalistic achievement, it broke the news of then-presidential candidate John Edwards’s extramarital affair with Rielle Hunter, partly by having its reporters hide in the bushes to gather evidence.

Longtime owner Generoso Pope Jr.’s family sold the paper to Pecker in 1999. The tabloid represents a corner of the media landscape virtually ignored by coastal elites, and it has long provided fervently positive coverage of Donald Trump, along with other celebrities known inside the Enquirer newsroom as “friends of Pecker.”

And Trump returned the praise. He once tweeted that Pecker should run Time magazine; he also said that the Enquirer deserved to win the Pulitzer Prize.

But the Enquirer’s political coverage of Trump during the 2016 election put the tabloid on much higher-profile footing and also landed it in legal jeopardy.

The imminent sale removes the Enquirer from Pecker’s control and puts some separation between the tabloid and recent scandals stemming, in part, from Pecker’s close relationship with Trump.

Last year, American Media acknowledged paying $150,000 to former Playboy model Karen McDougal, who alleged an affair with Trump to prevent her allegation “from influencing the election.” The admission came as federal prosecutors announced that they would not prosecute the company for its role in the scheme to favor Trump in the presidential race.

In the agreement, AMI said it would cooperate with prosecutors. The agreement, which was struck in September, covered Pecker and the company’s chief content officer, Dylan Howard, according to people familiar with it.

Just as the non-prosecution agreements were being finalized in August, AMI’s board agreed to explore a sale.

Then, in January, Pecker and the Enquirer devoted the cover and 12 pages of its Jan. 28 edition to an exposé of Bezos’s affair with Lauren Sanchez, former host of Fox’s “So You Think You Can Dance.”

Bezos later wrote a blog post accusing AMI of trying to blackmail him by threatening to publish explicit photos of the billionaire if he didn’t publicly state that he had no basis for suggesting that the Enquirer’s exposé was politically motivated. The Bezos story helped seal the Enquirer’s fate, said one person briefed on his thinking.

“The Trump thing was an issue, and [Melchiorre] was really disgusted by the Bezos reporting,” the person said.

The Bezos reporting also threatened to renew legal scrutiny on the company. Federal prosecutors reviewed accusations made by Bezos to determine if American Media may have violated the terms of a non-prosecution agreement, according to people familiar with the matter.

In a draft release of AMI’s announcement of the sale reviewed by The Washington Post, Pecker wrote: “Our board has been keenly focused on leveraging the popularity of our celebrity glossy, teen and active lifestyle brands while developing new and robust platforms . . . that now deliver significant revenue streams. Because of this focus, we feel the future opportunities with the tabloids can be best exploited by a different ownership.”

American Media is also exploring the sale of two other tabloids, the Globe and National Examiner. But it is the Enquirer that has been the focus of the board and is the main title that has landed both American Media and Pecker in legal trouble.

Bezos’s security consultant, Gavin de Becker, alleged in an opinion piece on the Daily Beast last month that AMI was “in league with a foreign nation that’s been actively trying to harm American citizens and companies, including the owner of the Washington Post.” De Becker said his “investigators and several experts concluded with high confidence that the Saudis had access to Bezos’ phone, and gained private information.”

The security consultant said that the Saudi government “has been intent on harming Jeff Bezos since last October, when The Post began its relentless coverage of” the killing of its editorial contributor Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul. De Becker accused the Enquirer of “trying to strongarm an American citizen whom that country’s leadership wanted harmed, compromised, and silenced.”

AMI has denied that any “third party” was involved in its reporting on Bezos. The company said its sole source for information about the extramarital affair was Michael Sanchez, Lauren’s brother.

A Saudi official said the government did not tap into Bezos’s phone and played no role in the Enquirer’s reporting on the Amazon founder.

The tangled web of allegations surrounding the Bezos story reaches into the Trump administration as well. De Becker alleged that the Enquirer “became an enforcement arm of the Trump presidential campaign and presidency” by, for example, paying McDougal and then not publishing her story.

One of the people familiar with the negotiations to sell the Enquirer said that AMI’s largest investors had become intensely uncomfortable with their investment in a tabloid that was involved in efforts to support the president’s administration and reelection bid.

“The president is buddies with Pecker and tries to help him, and Pecker does what he can to help the president,” the person said. “It can be embarrassing.”

 

[AmazonGrace]