National Enquirer kept damaging Donald Trump stories 'locked up in a safe'

The National Enquirer kept a safe containing documents on hush money payments and other damaging stories it killed as part of its cosy relationship with Donald Trump leading up to the 2016 presidential election, people familiar with the arrangement have told the Associated Press.

The detail came as several media outlets reported yesterday that federal prosecutors had granted immunity to National Enquirer chief David Pecker, potentially laying bare his efforts to protect his longtime friend Trump.

Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen pleaded guilty this week to campaign finance violations alleging he, Trump and the tabloid were involved in buying the silence of a porn actress and a Playboy model who alleged affairs with Trump.

Five people familiar with the National Enquirer's parent company, American Media Inc, who spoke to the AP on the condition of anonymity because they signed nondisclosure agreements, said the safe was a great source of power for Pecker, the company's CEO.

The Trump records were stored alongside similar documents pertaining to other celebrities' catch-and-kill deals, in which exclusive rights to people's stories were bought with no intention of publishing to keep them out of the news. By keeping celebrities' embarrassing secrets, the company was able to ingratiate itself with them and ask for favours in return.

But after the Wall Street Journal initially published the first details of Playboy model Karen McDougal's catch-and-kill deal shortly before the 2016 election, those assets became a liability. Fearful that the documents might be used against American Media, Pecker and the company's chief content officer, Dylan Howard, removed them from the safe in the weeks before Trump's inauguration, according to one person directly familiar with the events. It was unclear whether the documents were destroyed or simply were moved to a location known to fewer people.

Jerry George, a longtime Enquirer reporter who left the publication in 2013, said the practice of catch-and-kill took root at the Enquirer under Pecker. Although George had no personal knowledge of Trump-specific catch-and-kills, he said AMI generally paid hush money only if it believed it had something to gain. "They always got something in return," he said.

American Media did not respond to a request for comment.

Pecker's immunity deal was first reported yesterday by Vanity Fair and the Wall Street Journal, citing anonymous sources. Vanity Fair said Howard also was granted immunity.

Court papers in the Cohen case say Pecker "offered to help deal with negative stories about [Trump's] relationships with women by, among other things, assisting the campaign in identifying such stories so they could be purchased and their publication avoided".

The Journal reported Pecker shared with prosecutors details about payments that Cohen says Trump directed in the weeks and months before the election to buy the silence of McDougal and another woman alleging an affair, porn star Stormy Daniels. Daniels was paid US$130,000 ($195,600), and McDougal was paid US$150,000.

While Trump denies the affairs, his account of his knowledge of the payments has shifted. In April, Trump denied he knew anything about the Daniels payment. He told Fox News in an interview aired yesterday that he knew about payments "later on".

In July, Cohen released an audio tape in which he and Trump discuss plans to buy McDougal's story from the Enquirer. They suggested such a deal would mean Trump wouldn't have to permanently rely on a tight relationship with the paper. "You never know where that company - you never know what he's gonna be," Cohen says. "David gets hit by a truck," Trump says. "Correct," Cohen says. "So, I'm all over that."

The National Enquirer endorsed Trump for president in 2016, the first time it had ever officially backed a candidate. In the news pages, Trump's coverage was so favourable that the New Yorker magazine reported that the Enquirer had embraced him "with sycophantic fervour".

- AP