I hear he is going to collaborate with Tom Clancy.
At this point, that wouldn’t even surprise me.
you mean the ghost of Tom Clancy? 
Only stupid lawyers will work for the League of Evil Assholes
Because,
Never pay your contractors, including your lawyers.
wonder if it is a dead girl, a live boy, or a satisfied farm animal.
Don’t you mean, “Who is boinking Alex Trebek’s mom?” ?
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.
Ha…guess I missed that news. But again, nothing would shock me at this point. 
I’m telling y’all: it’s like we live in a Richard Condon novel.
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.
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Hey, here’s a novel angle: The Post is poised to publish information that Pecker would rather not be published, and so Pecker is trying to engage in a deal to stop that publication.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.
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. "
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.)
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.
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.
There are certainly differences of opinion on that. This law professor 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.
From TroutMan’s link"
The links in the quote are part of the way it was presented at the link, btw, not from me.
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:
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?
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.
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?
But a settlement requires a tort, right? Neither side were making litigious noises at the time. There was no legal conflict to settle.
Yeah, that’s kind of my understanding, too. Settlements involving threats of improper action seem unlikely to receive court protection.