Donald Trump Played Central Role in Hush Payoffs to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal
Source: Wall Street Journal
As a presidential candidate in August 2015, Donald Trump huddled with a longtime friend, media executive David Pecker, in his cluttered 26th floor Trump Tower office and made a request.
What can you do to help my campaign? he asked, according to people familiar with the meeting.
Mr. Pecker, chief executive of American Media Inc., offered to use his National Enquirer tabloid to buy the silence of women if they tried to publicize alleged sexual encounters with Mr. Trump.
Less than a year later, Mr. Trump asked Mr. Pecker to quash the story of a former Playboy model who said they'd had an affair. Mr. Pecker's company soon paid $150,000 to the model, Karen McDougal, to keep her from speaking publicly about it. Mr. Trump later thanked Mr. Pecker for the assistance.
The Trump Tower meeting and its aftermath are among several previously unreported instances in which Mr. Trump intervened directly to suppress stories about his alleged sexual encounters with women, according to interviews with three dozen people who have direct knowledge of the events or who have been briefed on them, as well as court papers, corporate records and other documents.
Read more: https://www.wsj.com/articles/donald-trump-played-central-role-in-hush-payoffs-to-stormy-daniels-and-karen-mcdougal-1541786601
I got past paywall by a following a link on Twitter:
Link to tweet
Achilleaze
(15,543 posts)His lies and assorted skuzz are bubbling to the surface of the republican moral cesspool again.
* aka republican Draft-Dodger-in-Chief
leftieNanner
(15,179 posts)I saw some of the lunacy on the WH lawn on his way to the chopper.
Can AF1 drop him off in Moscow and leave him there?
Achilleaze
(15,543 posts)leftieNanner
(15,179 posts)Oh Mr. Mueller?? May we have some indictments now please? Especially while AF1 is in the air?
Thanks in advance.
PeeJ52
(1,588 posts)unreported campaign contributions?
karynnj
(59,507 posts)One question might be who was the source for that dialogue? If it was just the two of them in the room, is Pecker talking?
PS I never thought a President would be BFF with the owner of the National Inquirer.
Packer is a cooperating witness for the SDNY investigation into michael cohen (who is also a cooperating witness).
turbinetree
(24,726 posts)do you think by some strong chance that someone from his campaign will have to explain how they did this..................in violation of the campaign finance laws, which were after all written by a Congress of the People to bar this kind of crap...........................
November 3, 2020 cannot get here fast enough.....................
Ohiogal
(32,118 posts)knowing that Donny's character is lower than pond scum and that he lies about everything.
Yet the Deplorables give him a pass on anything and everything.
I wonder how many abortions he's paid for.....
louis c
(8,652 posts)The Wall Street Journal, owned by Rupert Murdoch, had this story before the mid-terms and publishes after the election.
Assholes
Julian Englis
(2,309 posts)Link to tweet
His NYT OpEd piece: Michael Avenatti: The Case for Indicting the President
Following indictment, criminal defendants can question the validity of the charges, the methods used to acquire the evidence and the evidence itself. They can seek to dismiss a criminal indictment and, if unsatisfied with the ruling, appeal it all the way to the Supreme Court.
The grand jury system has been employed in hundreds of thousands of cases involving all manner of crimes committed by all manner of people. All, that is, except one: the president.
joshcryer
(62,277 posts)watoos
(7,142 posts)lying about getting a consensual blow job was an impeachable offense.
joshcryer
(62,277 posts)Getting a BJ isn't illegal.
cstanleytech
(26,334 posts)soliciting it?
DeminPennswoods
(15,290 posts)afaik.
cstanleytech
(26,334 posts)DeminPennswoods
(15,290 posts)but I'm thinking, odd as it might sound, that asking for help isn't illegal. Think of it as the same as asking Pecker (that surname and this story still cracks me up) for a monetary donation. That's not illegal, but it has to be reported.
cstanleytech
(26,334 posts)you would think he would be equal responsibility for breaking the law.
DeminPennswoods
(15,290 posts)campaign donation is.
FakeNoose
(32,823 posts)The payoffs themselves aren't illegal. It's the fact that campaign funds were used (illegally) or that the favor was an "in kind" donation to the campaign and it has to be reported, otherwise it's illegal. So Trump could have saved the whole thing by saying, "Oh yes I paid the woman with my own personal funds. And it's a private matter."
He didn't say that, and now here we are.
Catherine Vincent
(34,491 posts)riversedge
(70,347 posts)involvement.
zonkers
(5,865 posts)to other dudes that all these chicks I nailed have to be paid off. It's all about him and his supposed prowess.
question everything
(47,544 posts)duforsure
(11,885 posts)Who claimed to be the law and order candidate was actively breaking federal laws right and left to get elected. He's a career criminal who has no intentions of going by the rule of law, because he wants to be above it, or he threatens people,and abuses his powers to find ways to hurt anyone who opposes him. We got a mobster in the White House now, an illegitimate one at that.