Before Donald Trump’s “fixer” Michael Cohen paid off AVN Hall of Famer Stormy Daniels to silence her over a 2006 sexual encounter with Trump, the National Enquirer engaged in intense negotiations to buy the rights to Daniels’ story in what would likely have been a “catch and kill” operation. But American Media Inc. CEO David Pecker refused to pay a $120,000 asking price for Daniels’ account, according to an excerpt from a new book, published Tuesday By the Daily Beast.
The tabloid’s editor, Dylan Howard, was well aware that the attempt to suppress Daniels’ story on Trump’s behalf was illegal, according to the excerpt from The Fixers: The Bottom-Feeders, Crooked Lawyers, Gossipmongers, and Porn Stars Who Created the 45th President, written by investigative reporters Joe Palazzolo and Michael Rothfeld.
In a previously unrevealed text message sent on election night in 2016, when it became apparent that Trump was performing much better than predicted and appeared to be on his way to victory, the Enquirer’s then-editor Dylan Howard wrote to a family member, “At least if he wins, I’ll be pardoned for electoral fraud.”
According to the book, the urgency of suppressing Daniels’ story of sex with Trump spiked after release of the “Access Hollywood Tape” on October 7, 2016. On the tape, Trump was heard bragging about his sexual pursuit of a married woman, and boasting that he would often grab women “by the pussy” without their consent, because, “When you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.”
“The media frenzy (around the tape) breathed oxygen into Daniels’s flagging efforts to sell the story of her own Trump tryst,” wrote Palazzolo and Rothfeld. “Extramarital sex with a porn star, even one who’d slept with Trump willingly, would still damage his fading chances.”
Howard negotiated with Daniels’ agent at the time, Gina Rodriguez, who demanded $250,000 for Daniels’ story—fabricating claims that Daniels had other potential purchasers lined up. Howard also talked at length with lawyer Keith Davidson, who negotiated a “catch and kill” with the Enquirer for former Playboy centerfold model Karen McDougal, who also said she had an affair with Trump.
Eventually, Daniels’ price was hammered down to $120,000—but when Howard ran the figure by Pecker, the AMI chief simply said that the company could not pay that amount—though AMI had paid $150,000 to acquire and suppress McDougal’s story at Trump’s personal request, as AVN.com reported.
“Howard realized that Daniels would be Cohen and Trump’s problem now,” Palazzolo and Rothfeld write in their book.
Cohen arranged to pay $130,000 for Daniels to sign a “hush money” agreement that prohibited her from discussing the affair with Trump. The story was suppressed through the election—until 2018, when Daniels filed a lawsuit against Trump and Cohen to void the “hush” deal.
Cohen was eventually charged with campaign finance violations for the Daniels payoff, and is now serving a three-year sentence in federal prison.
Photo by Michael Dorausch / Wikimedia Commons
