The National Enquirer attack on Jeff Bezos is unraveling what looks like another failed Trump operation to strike back at one of his “enemies.”
The Washington Post’s Manuel Roig-Franzia said that Bezos’ security team believes that his texts were intercepted by a government entity and turned over to the Enquirer, “We haven’t spoken with Jeff Bezos, and he hasn’t been involved at all in our reporting, but we have spoken extensively with his security consultant, and he’s provided us with some very interesting insights into the backstages of this whole drama, including the investigation that has taken place in which they have begun to believe, the Bezos camp, that this publication by the “National Enquirer” might have been politically motivated. I would just add one other thing. You mentioned hacking at the top of the show. Gavin de Becker told us that he does not believe that Jeff Bezos’s phone was hacked. He thinks it’s possible that a government entity might have gotten a hold of his texts.”
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Trump wanted a war with Jeff Bezos and now he's got another criminal problem. https://t.co/90NCWBwj2n pic.twitter.com/Vd5haOLFoi
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— Sarah Reese Jones (@PoliticusSarah) February 8, 2019
The former senior editor of the Enquirer claims that David Pecker pursued the Bezos story as a way of making up with Donald Trump. The president has been trying to hurt Bezos for years because his newspaper The Washington Post broken several bombshell stories while reporting on the administration. Trump wants Bezos to sell The Post to a new owner who will be friendly to him. Trump tried the same tactics to try to pressure CNN into a sale to Rupert Murdoch.
As Laurence Tribe tweeted, it looks like Trump, Pecker, and the Saudis, who have their own interests in getting rid of Bezos after the Kashoggi murder, were all working together:
Are Donald Trump and the murderous Saudi Prince bin Salman co-conspirators with David Pecker and AMI in a failed criminal plot to blackmail and extort Jeff Bezos as owner of the Washington Post? Asking for a friend in the Southern District of New York.
— Laurence Tribe (@tribelaw) February 8, 2019
It might not be Mueller that brings Trump down, but his blackmailing of Jeff Bezos could reach a level of criminality that could be the end for Trump.
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Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
