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Strap in, my friends, for the Mother of all “Ya gotta be kidding me” lack of self-awareness moments from a “news” organization where it’s practically the brand.
Victoria wrote a recap of the latest kangaroo court election interference trial episode targeting Donald Trump. Here’s the part that’s germane to this column:
David Pecker, the former publisher of the National Enquirer, testified that he worked with Trump’s lawyer to kill stories that hurt Trump’s reputation or would be hurtful to his wife and family. This is the so-called catch-and-kill scheme, wherein sources would approach the Enquirer with an unflattering story about Trump (this applies to Hollywood stars and big shots), offer money to the people telling it, and then make the story disappear.
And it went something like this:
Pecker reportedly would alert Trump’s lawyer, Michael Cohen, about the titillating story.
Cohen got three sources to sign a non-disclosure agreement for a sum of money.
Trump paid his legal bills, which covered Cohen’s incurred costs plus more.
All of the above is legal.
I’m sure that many of you — like me — immediately thought, “Um, it’s the freakin’ Enquirer.”
If, however, you were an editor at The , you would have dispatched four writers to recap the proceedings with the headline, “A secret pact at Trump Tower helped kill bad stories in 2016.” I’m not going to quote much from the article because it’s mostly pathetic cheerleading for a corrupt judge who’s doing his part to help rig a presidential election.
