Enquirer sat on story of Trump affair with Playboy model

The Wall Street Journal outs the National Enquirer for quashing a story concerning game show host Donald Trump’s affair with a Playboy model:

The [Enquirer] has close ties to the real estate mogul, who is good friends with the outlet’s Executive Editor David Pecker. It only makes sense then that they would pay off a woman making allegations against Trump at this time, especially as he has been under fire for weeks after being accused of sexual assault and harassment from more than ten women.

The newspaper reportedly agreed to run former playmate Karen McDougal’s story, which they discussed in early August. However, the National Enquirer has yet to publish anything about the alleged “consensual romantic relationship” that McDougal had with Trump in 2006 when he was already married to Melania.

According to WSJ, the newspaper said that it hadn’t paid McDougal the $150,000 for her Trump story, but rather for “her fitness columns and magazine covers as well as exclusive life rights to any relationship she has had with a then-married man.”

The company’s statement also said that American Media Inc., which owns the Enquirer, “has not paid people to kill damaging stories about Mr. Trump.”

The full WSJ story is here.

By: dave-dr-gonzo

David Hirsch, a.k.a. Dave "Doctor" Gonzo*, is a renegade record producer, video producer, writer, reformed corporate shill, and still-registered lobbyist for non-one-percenter performing artists and musicians. He lives in a heavily fortified compound in one of Manhattan's less trendy neighborhoods.

* Hirsch is the third person to use the pseudonym, a not-so-veiled tribute to journalist and author Hunter S. Thompson, with the permission of his predecessors Gene Gaudette of American Politics Journal (currently webmaster and chief bottlewasher at Liberaland) and Stephen Meese at Smashmouth Politics.