Page 164 - Ami News Today

You worked for president trump both during the campaign and the first part of his presidency. what do you think is happening here when you hear bezos saying that pecker, who has clearly a relationship with the president has been accused of being one who funneled payoffs to women, bought their stories to keep quiet? as one who knows both and has worked for and with both, what do you think is happening here? >> good morning rev. >> good afternoon. >> these types of intimidations and threats are co...

Post" -- we, marty says, the administration may be at war with us, we are not at war with the administration. just do the work. just do the, that. >> good morning, and welcome to "a.m. joy." well, american media, inc., the company that publishes the "national enquirer" is back on federal prosecutors radar after an extraordinary medium post by amazon founder and "washington post" owner jeff bezos. bezos is accusing the company of trying to extort him into giving a public statement about the tablo...

Kind of operation of not directly with pecker, but with the campaign and the presidents people and the president would use friends in the media to go after his opponents and go after his critics? >> yes. we see that more closely by looking at what happened with michael cohen. in fact, this investigation into ami came as a result of the raid on michael cohens office where they came across documents, text messages, and voice mails that demonstrated the negotiation for the karen mcdougal story. the...

Practices around extortion, and whose benefit, whose benefit? right now everything we know about ami is everything theyve done is to benefit donald trump. >> donald trump. >> whitaker, who literally thanks to sam clovis, becomes a cnn legal analyst in order to get the attention of the trump administration for a job, and in august, 2017, calls the mueller probe the mueller lynch mob. and refuses to do even what william barr was willing to do which is to say this is not a witch hunt, there are rea...

Bezos accused the media of extortion and blackmail. they threatened to post photos unless he made a false statement to the press that amis coverage was politically motivated by political forces. more on the khashoggi saudi arabia piece of the puzzle later at the heart of the southern district of new york inquiry. thats the justice department northern branch in new york. is a cooperation agreement, signed by ami in departmeseptem. they agreed to take part in a catch and kill scheme. a former play...

Looking into lauren sanchezs brother may be behind the leak of the photos. he is said to be a supporter of president trump. the president, alex, has repeatedly attacked bezos, amazon and "the washington post." >> thank you, geoff. joining me now is legal analyst danny cevallos. danny, the definition of federal extortion. does this conduct from what we know about it fit into that? >> it could, but not easily. the traditional view of extortion is a demand for property or money or bag of cash in ex...

Extortion count. >> a veteran writer with the washington post, in this clip he is talking about the security consultant that jeff bezos hired. >> gavin told us that he does not believe that jeff bezos phone was hacked. he thinks its possible that a government entity might have gotten hold of his text messages. >> frank, if that got the attention of us civilians kicking around here, i imagine it caught the ear of the former head of counter intel for the fbi. what could that mean? and b, talk abou...

Enquirer" threatened to publish more photos. legal action that could put the deal with the government in jeopardy. >> amis behavior is reckless and possibly criminal. >> reporter: nbc news has not independently reviewed the e-mails. ami saying it believes it acted lawfully in reporting the bezos story. and describing having been in good faith negotiations to resolve all matters with bezos. bezos explaining his decision to speak out writing, of course i dont want personal photos publis published....

This is a common business practice. if this is something they do on a regular basis, does this establish a pattern that could be deemed extortion? >> extortion, blackmail, threats, in the case of bezos giving what they were threatening to reveal, even revenge porn. if a school yard bully says to a kid, if you dont do my homework, im going to beat you up, or a mob boss says to a storeowner, im going to collect $1,000 a week or theres going to be trouble, thats extortion. at least the bully and th...

Hes had something of a relationship with ami over the years. hes something thats been interviewed in the private investigation that bezos fundedi it may be all of these geopolitical forces or it may come down to something much more personal or some combination. >> i agree that we dont have any evidence. there are other data points. one of them is a hundred page publication called the new e kingdom. it was put out by ami, the owner of the national enquirer that just slobbered all over mbs in way ...