# National Enquirer tries to blackmail Bezos over Wash. Post stories **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [February 8, 2019, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-enquirer-tries-to-blackmail-bezos-over-wash-post-stories/829145 "2019-02-08T00:08:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![wguy123](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wguy123/32/3161_2.png) [@wguy123](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wguy123)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2019, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-enquirer-tries-to-blackmail-bezos-over-wash-post-stories/829145/61 "2019-02-08T16:22:58Z")
> [@CaptMurdock](#): > > John Grisham is no doubt negotiating the rights as we speak. I hear he is going to collaborate with Tom Clancy. > [@elucidator](#): > > “…and then the Russian submarine commander joins the CIA, and rises in the ranks until he is the only ranking admin person when the meteor hits, and becomes President, when it is revealed that he was boinking Alex Trebek’s mom…” At this point, that wouldn’t even surprise me. ---
**Author:** ![Bijou\_Drains](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bijou_drains/32/2814_2.png) [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2019, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-enquirer-tries-to-blackmail-bezos-over-wash-post-stories/829145/62 "2019-02-08T16:32:53Z")
you mean the ghost of Tom Clancy? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2019, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-enquirer-tries-to-blackmail-bezos-over-wash-post-stories/829145/63 "2019-02-08T16:38:07Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Second rule of the League of Evil Assholes is to only hire stupid lawyers. Only stupid lawyers will work for the League of Evil Assholes Because, > [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](#): > > What is the first? Never pay your contractors, including your lawyers. > [@JohnT](#): > > [tin foil hat time] > > Lindsey Graham is a strong possibility to have had this happen to him. From “Trump will destroy the GOP!” to “My Lips Are Orange!”, his change of heart may have been brought about by blackmail attempts by an entity which is known for blackmailing people on behalf of Trump. > > [/tin foil hat time] wonder if it is a dead girl, a live boy, or a satisfied farm animal. > [@elucidator](#): > > “…and then the Russian submarine commander joins the CIA, and rises in the ranks until he is the only ranking admin person when the meteor hits, and becomes President, when it is revealed that he was boinking Alex Trebek’s mom…” Don’t you mean, “Who is boinking Alex Trebek’s mom?” ? ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2019, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-enquirer-tries-to-blackmail-bezos-over-wash-post-stories/829145/64 "2019-02-08T16:43:02Z")
> [@CaptMurdock](#): > > John Grisham is no doubt negotiating the rights as we speak. > > * * * > > Having read both pro & con arguments provided up-thread (BTW, thanks fellas!) I’d say the chances of getting a criminal conviction are…murky. A good prosecutor can make the “broad definition of ‘property’” argument work, but a good defense attorney can throw shade on that with a strict “monetary only” interpretation. In the end I can see this going up the appeal chain, maybe even to SCOTUS, and by that point all bets are off. And if by chance AMI manages to skate on the criminal charges, Bezos can file a civil suit and _really_ turn the screws. Yeah, criminal charges are one thing, but businesses really fear civil litigation more than criminal. Criminal charges can sting, civil can cost you the business or almost as Gawker found out. And Bezos certainly has the money to throw around. So does AMI, of course, but they can’t be as well-heeled as Bezos. ---
**Author:** ![wguy123](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wguy123/32/3161_2.png) [@wguy123](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wguy123)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2019, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-enquirer-tries-to-blackmail-bezos-over-wash-post-stories/829145/65 "2019-02-08T16:44:42Z")
> [@Bijou\_Drains](#): > > you mean the ghost of Tom Clancy? 🙂 Ha…guess I missed that news. But again, nothing would shock me at this point. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2019, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-enquirer-tries-to-blackmail-bezos-over-wash-post-stories/829145/66 "2019-02-08T16:45:39Z")
> [@wguy123](#): > > Our life has become a real-life fictional thriller book. I’m telling y’all: it’s like we live in a Richard Condon novel. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2019, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-enquirer-tries-to-blackmail-bezos-over-wash-post-stories/829145/67 "2019-02-08T16:50:41Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > … The Post’s stock in trade is stories, and so publishing stories brings in income for the Post, and so ceasing to run a story would mean a decrease in the Post’s income. There is a massive weakness in that argument, though. The logic is backwards, kind of like saying a restaurant makes money by having waitstaff. A story is the exact opposite of income: it is a necessary expense, published for the purpose of supporting ad revenue. So, the monetary value of a given story can be very hard to measure. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2019, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-enquirer-tries-to-blackmail-bezos-over-wash-post-stories/829145/68 "2019-02-08T17:06:53Z")
Still, if a newspaper had no stories, they would be unable to make any money. Hey, here’s a novel angle: The Post is poised to publish information that Pecker would rather not be published, and so Pecker is trying to engage in a deal to stop that publication. Could one argue that Pecker is trying to incite the Post into engaging in blackmail? Probably not, both for the same “no money” reasons as the other case, and because I’m not sure if “inciting to commit blackmail” is even a crime. But it’s fun to contemplate. ---
**Author:** ![Maastricht](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a88e57/32.png) [@Maastricht](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maastricht)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2019, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-enquirer-tries-to-blackmail-bezos-over-wash-post-stories/829145/69 "2019-02-08T17:50:07Z")
Pecker claims innocence: "we were just settling our differences in what we (scouts honor !) thought was a legal way. But, eh, we’ll look into it. Yes. " > **[National Enquirer's reporting on Jeff Bezos under scrutiny by federal...](https://edition.cnn.com/2019/02/08/media/national-enquirer-jeff-bezos/index.html)** > > Jeff Bezos has told his side of the story. Now David Pecker, head of National Enquirer's publisher American Media Inc., is responding. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2019, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-enquirer-tries-to-blackmail-bezos-over-wash-post-stories/829145/70 "2019-02-08T18:25:05Z")
Does Mr. Bezos have a few extra million dollars lying around? I hope he uses them to sue the pants off these Trumpist criminals. It’s amusing to see the Trump Gang pick on a real billionaire. 🙂 Betsy “I’d be happy to spend taxpayer dollars educating black kids as long as they go to the ‘Christian’ for-profit schools run by my friends” DeVos is the only actual billionaire in the whole crooked lot. Wilbur Ross has been using his position to commit insider fraud and cheat the taxpayer — when is he going to prison? — but still isn’t up to a billion. Mnuchin, in the #3 slot, confines his embezzlement _AFAWK_ to silly jet travel. (Mnuchin was in the Cabinet’s #4 wealth slot, but moved up when Rex Tillerson bailed out.) ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2019, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-enquirer-tries-to-blackmail-bezos-over-wash-post-stories/829145/71 "2019-02-08T20:48:14Z")
> [@eschereal](#): > > There is a massive weakness in that argument, though. The logic is backwards, kind of like saying a restaurant makes money by having waitstaff. A story is the exact opposite of income: it is a necessary expense, published for the purpose of supporting ad revenue. So, the monetary value of a given story can be very hard to measure. That ignores the forest for the trees. Yes, stories are a necessary **expense** , but they’re an expense necessary for **profit**. A newspaper that doesn’t have stories doesn’t sell subscriptions/doesn’t sell ads/doesn’t make money. Removing a story from a paper hurts its bottom line, costs it money. Just because the removal of the story also removes an expense doesn’t change that dynamic. ---
**Author:** ![TroutMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troutman/32/6721_2.png) [@TroutMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TroutMan)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2019, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-enquirer-tries-to-blackmail-bezos-over-wash-post-stories/829145/72 "2019-02-08T21:23:20Z")
You’re making this way tougher than it needs to be to argue that AMI was extorting a thing of value. The number one “term” in the demand email was “a full and complete mutual release of all claims that American Media…and Jeff Bezos…may have against each other.” Potential claims against AMI are obviously something of monetary value. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2019, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-enquirer-tries-to-blackmail-bezos-over-wash-post-stories/829145/73 "2019-02-08T21:42:48Z")
> [@TroutMan](#): > > You’re making this way tougher than it needs to be to argue that AMI was extorting a thing of value. The number one “term” in the demand email was “a full and complete mutual release of all claims that American Media…and Jeff Bezos…may have against each other.” Potential claims against AMI are obviously something of monetary value. But, generally speaking, a court isn’t going to find it a criminal act to propose a deal to settle litigation. The law encourages settlement. ---
**Author:** ![TroutMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troutman/32/6721_2.png) [@TroutMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TroutMan)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2019, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-enquirer-tries-to-blackmail-bezos-over-wash-post-stories/829145/74 "2019-02-08T22:34:45Z")
There are certainly differences of opinion on that. [This law professor](https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/02/jeff-bezos-american-media-national-enquirer-blackmail.html) would disagree that this would be considered a settlement. Not to say that he’s right either, but it’s not an open-and-shut case either way. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2019, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-enquirer-tries-to-blackmail-bezos-over-wash-post-stories/829145/75 "2019-02-08T22:52:54Z")
From **TroutMan** ’s link" > [@](#): > > First, AMI’s emails pretty plainly satisfy the elements of federal extortion, 18 U.S.C. §875(d), which prohibits transmitting a communication in interstate commerce “containing any threat to injure the … reputation of the addressee” in order to extort “money or other thing of value.” The emails are in interstate commerce. The threat was to Bezos’ reputation. AMI might argue that it wasn’t demanding a “thing of value,” but under federal law, that’s almost certainly wrong. > > The term thing of value extends to intangibles and even to things without any transferrable monetary worth, like [cessation of a criminal prosecution](https://casetext.com/case/united-states-v-myers-104), [continuation of a sexual relationship](https://casetext.com/case/united-states-v-petrovic), or even [an apology](https://www.leagle.com/decision/infco20170822163). The demand that Bezos refrain from attributing political motive to AMI could itself be a “thing of value.” But even if that were not the case, a release of potential legal claims plainly is a thing of economic value. So it appears that AMI, as a corporate entity; Fine, its lawyer; and anyone within the corporation who approved Fine’s demands could potentially be charged with felony extortion. The links in the quote are part of the way it was presented at the link, btw, not from me. ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2019, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-enquirer-tries-to-blackmail-bezos-over-wash-post-stories/829145/76 "2019-02-09T00:01:56Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > …And of course there’s also the question of how Pecker obtained the compromat in the first place, which probably involved someone committing a crime. And if that crime was committed by someone in the Trump Administration, misusing government agencies to surveil Trump opponents… then we have something truly explosive on our hands: > [@](#): > > … In an appearance on MSNBC on Thursday, Post reporter Manuel Roig-Franzia said that Bezos’s security consultant, Gavin de Becker, believes that the National Enquirer obtained text messages from Bezos through inappropriate means. > > … "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 hold of his text messages,” he added. > > … De Becker’s assertion that Bezos’s phone was not hacked raises questions as to how staffers at the Enquirer obtained messages that were allegedly sent privately between Bezos and his rumored girlfriend, former TV anchor Lauren Sanchez. [https://thehill.com/policy/technology/429085-reporter-bezos-investigator-believes-government-entity-may-have-obtained](https://thehill.com/policy/technology/429085-reporter-bezos-investigator-believes-government-entity-may-have-obtained) It’s just speculation at this point. But would anyone be surprised? ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2019, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-enquirer-tries-to-blackmail-bezos-over-wash-post-stories/829145/77 "2019-02-09T00:46:14Z")
Damn, that sounds like one of those old movies, where the editor is held in jail for contempt because he refuses to reveal the source. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2019, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-enquirer-tries-to-blackmail-bezos-over-wash-post-stories/829145/78 "2019-02-09T01:56:28Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > But, generally speaking, a court isn’t going to find it a criminal act to propose a deal to settle litigation. The law encourages settlement. Sure, but it still depends on the nature of the settlement proposal: “Hey Jeff, you’ve probably been looking for those dick pix with your lady friend that you showed me last time I was over. Well, you won’t find them because last weekend when you were away I broke into your house and stole them. I’ll give them back as soon as you drop your civil action against me. Otherwise I’ll mail them back to your house, addressed to your wife.” Do the courts want to encourage that settlement? ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2019, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-enquirer-tries-to-blackmail-bezos-over-wash-post-stories/829145/79 "2019-02-09T02:02:21Z")
But a settlement requires a tort, right? Neither side were making litigious noises at the time. There was no legal conflict to settle. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2019, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-enquirer-tries-to-blackmail-bezos-over-wash-post-stories/829145/80 "2019-02-09T02:40:57Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > Sure, but it still depends on the nature of the settlement proposal: > > “Hey Jeff, you’ve probably been looking for those dick pix with your lady friend that you showed me last time I was over. Well, you won’t find them because last weekend when you were away I broke into your house and stole them. I’ll give them back as soon as you drop your civil action against me. Otherwise I’ll mail them back to your house, addressed to your wife.” > > Do the courts want to encourage that settlement? Yeah, that’s kind of my understanding, too. Settlements involving threats of improper action seem unlikely to receive court protection. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-enquirer-tries-to-blackmail-bezos-over-wash-post-stories/829145.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-enquirer-tries-to-blackmail-bezos-over-wash-post-stories/829145.md?page=5)