re: #486 Stanley Sea

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Good take.

If you read the Cohen Information, which is essentially the charging document, it makes clear that the Trump/Enquirer arrangement wasn’t just a friend keeping an eye out for his friend - the way the relationship and modus operandi had been portrayed in the media. It was a very specific arrangement: The Enquirer would troll for Trump-damaging stories, which there were obviously going to be a lot of, buy them and then sell them to Trump. The last part is key; and we didn’t know that until Tuesday. This wasn’t just being a pal. It was a specific, standing financial arrangement. The Enquirer would essentially act as a cut-out, buying stories on Trump’s behalf without the seller of the story knowing what was happening.

It was a great convenience. It’s obviously inherently difficult to Trump to purchase stories about his affairs from former mistresses or sex partners. Obviously he did that too. But in many cases it was going to be easier for the Enquirer to trick the sellers by making them think they were selling their story to a publisher rather than Trump.

It’s one thing to do something like this as an individual. But the Enquirer was doing this as a company, with multiple employees involved. Given the various ancillary crimes involved and the potential forother crimes that remain uncharged, that’s a big problem and a real threat to the company.

Pecker’s empire is at stake here. He’d rather burn Cohen (and by extension, Trump) than lose his cash cow.