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AAnother Hollywood awards ceremony was held with the usual fashion show on the red carpet, sincere acceptance speeches and a mix between rich and famous. So few have found this remarkable when billionaire Jeff Bezos, general manager of Amazon, was photographed at an after-party with television presenter and helicopter pilot Lauren Sanchez.
But just days after the Golden Globes, it would become clear that this photo was a crucial clue to the dissolution of Bezos' marriage for 25 years – and an intriguing network of intrigues now spanning the worlds of politics. in Washington, tabloids from New York and Los Angeles. show business.
Add to that sordid pictures, accusations of blackmail and a blog post from Bezos, and the man who offered the world "The Everything Store" had delivered "The Everything Scandal" – maybe all the way that leads to the US president and his allies in Saudi Arabia.
At a time when every controversy seems to have a connection with Donald Trump, there was of course a connection with him. Speculation was rife that the world's most powerful man had made a supermarket tabloid to attack the world's richest. Trump, Bezos, 72, is 55, after all, a fierce rivalry, at least in the president's mind.
Bezos, who founded Amazon as an online bookseller in 1994 and bought the Washington Post in 2013, is worth $ 136 billion, a fortune that exceeds Trump's. For three years, Trump has attacked him on Twitter, falsely accusing Amazon of evading tax at the expense of the post office and the post office for "false information" traffic. But Bezos kept his cool and refused to bite at the hook, which probably upset the president.
Bezos' personal life, however, was the subject of an undesirable review a month ago in an almost trumpian style. On January 9, three days after the Golden Globes, he used Twitter to announce his divorce from novelist MacKenzie Bezos. The next day, the National Enquirer tabloid revealed the extramarital affair of Bezos with Sanchez, 49, former host of So You Think You Can Dance? now divorcing her husband.
In an 11-page cover, the daily Enquirer said its reporters followed Bezos and Sanchez "in five states and 40,000 km" and "followed them behind in private jets, refined limousines, helicopter rides, romantic hikes, hiding places of five-star hotels and intimate dinners and "quality time" in hidden love nests. "The tabloid reported that Bezos had sent" mournful textures and notes of " 39 "spurting love" to Sanchez.
It is safe to badume that no previous US President would have adopted a comment. But Trump could not hide his sense of Schadenfreude. "I'm really sorry to hear that Jeff Bozo is a victim of a competitor whose reporting is, as I understand it, much more accurate than his lobbyist journal, Amazon Washington Post," he jubilated on Twitter. "Hopefully the document will soon be placed in better and more responsible hands!"
It was not the end, however.
With almost unlimited resources at his disposal, Bezos hired a team of private detectives to find out how Enquirer got his hands on his text messages and photos. David Pecker, owner of Enquirer and long-time friend of Trump, was "apoplectic" when he learned that the tables had been reversed, according to the blogger Bezos, and threatened to publish more material unless Bezos cancel his investigators.
Enquirer editor Dylan Howard reportedly sent an e-mail warning nine intimate images with unsustainable details. They included a "selfie under the belt – commonly called a pick."
On Bezos' account, the Pecker team made an offer: the Enquirer would agree not to publish the photos if Bezos and his investigators issued a public statement "claiming they had no knowledge or foundation" suggesting that the cover of the tabloid was "politically motivated or influenced by political forces".
Bezos announced that he was divorcing his wife McKenzie after 25 years of marriage. Photography: Jerod Harris / Getty Images
Bezos refused and hit the bully instead. "Of course, I do not want personal photos to be published, but I will not participate in their well-known practice of blackmail, political favors, political attacks and corruption," he writes. "I prefer to get up, roll this newspaper and see what happens."
His article on the blog, published on the Medium Neutral website under the title "No thanks, Mr. Pecker," returned the script and gained wide approval. Journalist Carl Bernstein, who covered the Watergate saga, told CNN that Bezos "has, in this case, acted heroically, establishing that neither he nor the Post will be intimidated." Nicholas Thompson, editor of Wired, tweeted: "It's amazing that the National Enquirer has been so repulsive that the entire Internet is looking for a billionaire who's been fired for a bargain."
Others have been amazed by the epic and multiple nature of the scandal and by the way it reflects the spirit of the times. Robinson Meyer wrote in Atlantic magazine: "In a little over 2,000 words, Bezos seemed to tear up all the newspaper headlines and tie them into an eternal neon braid: the powerful power of billionaires, the impeachment of American journalism, the the mediocrity of badgraphy related to smart phones has come true – all this, and President Donald Trump (who is a close friend of David Pecker, chief executive of AMI), as well as the corruption and murder of the Saudi journalist of the Saudi government, according to Bezos in his narrative "for reasons that remain to be understood".
The trail of crumbs leading to Trump and Saudi Arabia is circumstantial and tempting. Enquirer has long been engaged in catch-and-kill agreements on behalf of the real estate mogul in New York, paying for negative stories to make sure they never see the light of the day. day.
These included Trump's alleged affair with adult movie actor Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen MacDougal. American Media Inc. (AMI) parent company, which had admitted its criminal behavior last year in a plea agreement with federal prosecutors, was granted immunity in exchange for its testimony against Michael Cohen, Trump's legal guardian . Prosecutors would now be checking whether the Enquirer quarrel with Bezos violated the cooperation and non-prosecution agreement.
Meanwhile, Bezos suggested in his blog post that the Washington Post's account of the murder of columnist Jamal Khashoggi, a critic of the Saudi government, could have made him a target of Pecker. AMI produced a brilliant Saudi tabloid, he says.
He also noted that Pecker and AMI had been "investigated for various actions they had undertaken on behalf of the Saudi government" and added enigmatically that "for reasons that still need to be better understood, the Saudi angle seems to strike a particularly sensitive nerve. " Trump has also been criticized for his close relations with the Saudi government and his inability to demand answers about Khashoggi's death.
On Friday, AMI announced that its board of directors had ordered a swift and thorough investigation and that it would take "all appropriate measures necessary". Adel al-Jubeir, Saudi Foreign Minister, told CBS's Face the Nation: "It sounds like an operatic soap opera, I watched it on TV and read about it in the newspaper. Is something between the two parties, we have nothing to do with it. "
But since Friday night, the White House had reacted in an unusual way: silence.
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