AMI: National Enquirer Owner Admits Paying Playboy Model to Protect Trump

The press company to which the National Enquirer belongs admitted to having "worked in concert" with the Trump campaign to pay a woman who had told her had an affair with Mr. Trump to: crush his story, prosecutors said Wednesday in New York.

The US Attorney's Office in the Southern District of New York stated that he had agreed not to sue American Media, Inc. (AMI), the parent company of Enquirer, for its participation in the program in exchange for the cooperation of the company in the investigation. in payment to Karen McDougal an old Playboy model.

AMI "admitted that her main purpose in making the payment was to suppress the woman's story in order to prevent her from influencing the election"

The announcement comes a few hours after Trump's former attorney Michael Cohen was sentenced in Manhattan to a three-year prison term in a federal prison for violating campaign funding laws for his role in the payment of McDougal and Stormy Daniels. ] Prosecutors did not specify when they reached an agreement not to sue AMI for payment to McDougal, intervened a few weeks before the elections of 2016. The office said in a press release that the company "has admitted to having made the payment of $ 150,000 (…) in order to ensure that the woman does not publish any damaging allegations about the candidate. "

"AMI also admitted that its main purpose was to make the payment aimed at suppressing the woman's story in order to prevent it from influencing the elections," the press release said.

In exchange for the avoidance of prosecution, AMI accepted its responsibility, agreed to participate in the investigation, and improved its internal compliance with the campaign finance laws, said the US Attorney.