The Notorious “catch and kill" campaign: Turning the National Enquirer into an arm of Trump's 2016 presidential campaign

What I Saw Working at The National Enquirer During Donald Trump’s Rise - By Lachlan Cartwright

Inside the notorious “catch and kill” campaign that now stands at the heart of the former president’s legal trial.

I pulled up the indictment and the statement of facts on my iPhone. At the center of the case is the accusation that Trump took part in a scheme to turn The National Enquirer and its sister publications into an arm of his 2016 presidential campaign. The documents detailed three “hush money” payments made to a series of individuals to guarantee their silence about potentially damaging stories in the months before the election. Because this was done with the goal of helping his election chances, the case implied, these payments amounted to a form of illegal, undisclosed campaign spending. And, Bragg argued, because Trump created paperwork to make the payments seem like regular legal expenses, that amounted to a criminal effort at a coverup. Trump has denied the charges against him.


The documents rattled off a number of seedy stories that would have been right at home in a venerable supermarket tabloid, had they actually been published. The subjects were anonymized but recognizable to anyone who had followed the story of Trump’s entanglement with The Enquirer. His affair with the porn star Stormy Daniels, of course, was the heart of it. There was also Karen McDougal, the Playboy Playmate of the Year in 1998, whose affair with Trump was similarly made to disappear, the payments for the rights to her story made to look like fees for writing a fitness column and appearing on magazine covers. (Trump has denied involvement with both women.) There were others that were lesser known, too, like Dino Sajudin, a former Trump World Tower doorman who claimed that Trump had a love child with one of the building’s employees; the story was never published, and Sajudin was paid $30,000 to keep quiet about it.


To me this is unbelievable. Before Mr. Trump's official entry into presidential politics - he becoming a politician - this kind of story that surfaced years ago, would've killed the career of an aspiring politician. But with Mr. Trump's troll-like campaign (proof/not opinion is his personal/family insults and attacks on a debate stage, breaking of norms, rules...unheard of before 2015), the bizarre became acceptable to small but then growing a segment of the population.

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This is a story that needs telling.
One under appreciated aspect of what Pecker deceitfully did for Trump is the extent of the hit pieces that were published at the NE focusing on Don's opponents. The lie about Ted Cruz's dad being the most famous. But there were many others.

A couple of months later, Trump descended the escalator at Trump Tower. Editorial discussions about John Travolta, Lisa Marie Presley and Bill Cosby were now interspersed with chatter about Hillary Clinton, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio. The headlines that resulted were not ambiguous.

“Why I am THE ONLY Choice For President EXCLUSIVE! DONALD TRUMP WRITES FOR THE ENQUIRER.” (He didn’t. A colleague cobbled the piece together, and Michael Cohen — Trump’s lawyer and go-between with A.M.I. — got Trump’s approval for it.)

“WHO’S CHELSEA’S REAL DAD? PREZ HOPEFUL HILLARY’S MOMENT OF TRUTH. EXCLUSIVE DNA TEST RESULTS BOMBSHELL.” (We had mounted an operation to collect Chelsea Clinton’s trash in an effort to get her DNA. But because Clinton lived in a big Manhattan apartment building, it was virtually impossible to get access to her garbage; we instead got a sample off a pen she used to sign a book. The results were inconclusive, but we published the story anyway.)
 
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One under appreciated aspect of what Pecker deceitfully did for Trump is the extent of the hit pieces that were published at the NE focusing on Don's opponents. The lie about Ted Cruz's dad being the most famous. But there were many others.
The two men Trump and his pal Pecker were known to do sleazy favors for each other.
 
The two men Trump and his pal Pecker were known to do sleazy favors for each other.
Trump's atrocious behavior has been so normalized people hardly bat an eye at the whole sordid episode. The adultery, the attempt to deceive the public and Melania, the horrible stories about opponents he tacitly approved of. It's all just the kind of despicable stuff Don always finds himself in the middle of.
 
Of course it was. It was something of value to the campaign. The very definition of a campaign contribution. And at $130,000, it far exceeded the limit Cohen was legally allowed to pay. And most obviously, Cohen was convicted, among other crimes, of a campaign finance violation.
Using your logic Hitlery should be on trial for paying Russians for a fake dossier to help her campaign.
 
So you can’t cite the statute.

Got it.
Fact: The indictment lists the crimes.

I've gone on record saying it was enough for me to see Mr. Trump brought before justice. Any specific outcome matters less to me. There are general and nuanced arguments out there from many scholars, and armchair legal experts. On social media and places like usmb, I see the average person regurgitating key phrases (fed into their minds by ideological and political mouthpieces), like underlying crimes, predicate crimes, intent to defraud, election interference, all while ignoring any coherent arguments of legal and judicial interpretations of particular state or federal statutes.

This is a pretty damn good piece:

 
One under appreciated aspect of what Pecker deceitfully did for Trump is the extent of the hit pieces that were published at the NE focusing on Don's opponents. The lie about Ted Cruz's dad being the most famous. But there were many others.

Is publishing lies about political figures illegal?
 
Fact: The indictment lists the crimes.

I've gone on record saying it was enough for me to see Mr. Trump brought before justice. Any specific outcome matters less to me. There are general and nuanced arguments out there from many scholars, and armchair legal experts. On social media and places like usmb, I see the average person regurgitating key phrases (fed into their minds by ideological and political mouthpieces), like underlying crimes, predicate crimes, intent to defraud, election interference, all while ignoring any coherent arguments of legal and judicial interpretations of particular state or federal statutes.

This is a pretty damn good piece:

Another fail.

Try again.
 
Character.
Another fail.

Try again.
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