The head of the company that publishes the National Enquirer reportedly spoke with New York prosecutors regarding its investigation into the Trump Organization’s involvement with hush money payments.
According to a CNN report Monday, sources with knowledge of the late October meeting said that David Pecker, chairman of America Media Inc., spoke with New York district attorney prosecutors about the hush money payments that the Trump Organization sent to women who alleged affairs with President Trump.
Sources told CNN that Pecker’s meeting could potentially provide details on conversations involving Stormy Daniels and agreements that former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen — who was convicted of lying to Congress, among other crimes — set up. The sources added that Pecker is expected to continue discussions with prosecutors.
Pecker was granted immunity as part of federal prosecutors’ investigation into Cohen and the hush money payments, and prosecutors agreed not to prosecute American Media Inc. As part of that agreement, the company agreed to “provide cooperation in the future”
New York prosecutors are particularly looking into whether any state laws were violated, which would include the Trump Organization defrauding any Daniels payment-related business records, according to CNN.
Prediction: Trump, personally, will never have to answer for any of this. But the Trump Organization is going to end up being liquidated, assuming there’s some actual value there (I suspect the whole thing is a house of cards, and is essentially underwater). It will go the way of virtually every other Trump enterprise, i.e., into the crapper.
I’m still amazed that SDNY is plugging away on justice…I have a feeling that they are making their actions known publicly enough so that Barr can’t shut them down behind the scenes. Or, maybe they have said that they will resign and go public if there are any shenanigans…things are touchy enough that Barr would probably hold back in fear of how that would blow up in his face.
Whatever the reason, hopefully they work fast enough to get things on the table by August 2020, after that they will wait until after the election. They aren’t being blocked by fake immunity stances from the Trump administration, because there isn’t any presidential immunity in these cases, and they can dish out real consequences to anyone who doesn’t cooperate. That is getting results, hopefully more indictments soon, even if they have to include Trump as unindicted conspirator once again.
When I would take care of my weekly food shopping I would glance at the cover of the National Enquirer while on the checkout line. In 2015-16 it became obvious to me what it was. Less in the way of its usual celebrity near death and diet secrets. Full on with its Trump hype and full on Hillary hatred as if he and the RNC had them in their wheelhouse.
Now with Pecker and AMI turning on Trump you could imagine the headlines:
“Trump has late stage syphilis, White House can’t control him!” “Ivanka and Jarad want to be president!”
“Melania ready to leave for Slovenia!” “Don junior cries for dad!” “I colluded to please you!”
Well, this particular story refers to local, not federal, prosecutors.
Ah, but this one isn’t SDNY. This is NY State prosecutors, immune to interference by Bill Barr, immune to pardons by Trump.