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.
And Biden squashed the fact that he had classified documents before the 2020 election.
 
It was against the law. It’s a campaign finance violation since he did it in coordination with Trump for the benefit of the campaign.

That’s an in kind donation and cannot exceed the contribution limits and must be reported.
FEC says you are full of shit.
 
No, he said he didnt find enough evidence to charge anyone with criminal conspiracy.

I don't have to aside by your lies and your spin.

And when Trump said "no collusion, no obstruction", Mueller refuted him.

As I am refuting you now.

Have fun performing the losing exercise again.
Lies are all you have. Read the Mueller report. I have it open on my computer right now. Tell me what page you are citing.

You can't because it doesn't say what you are claiming.

I quoted the Mueller report, Section 1 executive summary, Barr's summation to the Congress, and the Durham Report.

All factual accounts of the actual record.

You: "nuh uhh..."
 
Ah yes, the inevitable but specious analogy to the dossier. It was only a matter of time. You need to do some homework on how Fusion GPS was paid. Not that you care about the details/truth.

Hillary's law firm or was it the DNC's law firm paid for the dossier.
 
Dude paid for a story, then decided to not publish it. Quote the statute that violates, Simp.

You have that backwards, Dumbfuck. Pecker, working with Cohen who was working with Trump decided to kill the story before ever paying a dime. Pecker avoided prosecution by making a deal which gave him immunity in exchange for being a witness against Trump.
 
You have that backwards, Dumbfuck. Pecker, working with Cohen who was working with Trump decided to kill the story before ever paying a dime. Pecker avoided prosecution by making a deal which gave him immunity in exchange for being a witness against Trump.

Oh no, they killed a story!
First time in history a story was killed.

DURR
 
Yet you can't quote a single statement I made and say why it is a lie.

All bluster.

Mueller was very clear. You aren't going to get away with your lies.
EVERY statement you made is a lie. They are lies because Mueller did not say what you are claiming he said!

He never said "he didn't evaluate collusion".
He never characterized "a mountain of contacts".

He said he would leave the question of obstruction for Comey's firing open, for the DOJ to evaluate.

He spent a lot of time describing the IRA social media shenangans, and talking about the DNC email hacks, and never connected any of that to anyone in the US.

He indicted a bunch of Russian nationals for show.

That was it.

Mueller wasn't really the one in charge- it was Andy Weissmann (another corrupt prosecutor). Mueller was so out of it, he was a complete embarrassment at the hearing. He didn't even know who Glen Simpson or Fusion GPS was.

Pretty pathetic for the guy who was supposedly investigating "Russian Collusion" to not even know where the phony allegation came from...

The "contacts" Mueller described were Popadopolous, Page, Manafort, the Trump Tower meeting, etc. All of which we now know were part of the scam. Popadopolous and the Trump Tower meeting were setups, Page was reporting back to the CIA, and Manafort was on his own gig that had nothing to do with Trump...
 
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You have that backwards, Dumbfuck. Pecker, working with Cohen who was working with Trump decided to kill the story before ever paying a dime. Pecker avoided prosecution by making a deal which gave him immunity in exchange for being a witness against Trump.


No money involved? Even better.

Provide the statute that makes it illegal for some guys to get together and decide not to run a story, Moron.
 

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