Remember that “safe” at the National Enquirer? It’s being opened.
by digby
One imagines this will be a blockbuster:
The National Enquirer’s long-held secrets about Donald Trump may be about to get substantially less secret.
Page Six is told that the longtime executive editor of the tabloid, Barry Levine, is penning a book for Hachette about the president.
A source says that the book will look into “Trump and his women,” although other insiders tell us that it could be more wide-ranging, even looking at the formerly cozy relationship between the Enquirer’s owner, David Pecker, and Trump. That said, it’s unclear exactly what Levine’s contract with the Enquirer would allow him to reveal about Pecker.
Of course, Pecker has been at the center of an investigation into alleged hush money payouts made to Karen McDougal and Stormy Daniels — who both claim to have had affairs with Trump while he was married to First Lady Melania Trump. In August, Pecker was granted immunity in the probe.
Either way, Levine — who left the Enquirer in 2016 after 17 years — will have plenty of previously unreported material for the tome.
In its reporting on the relationship between Pecker and Trump, the Wall Street Journal wrote in June, that, “Tips about Mr. Trump poured into the tabloid after his television show ‘Celebrity Apprentice’ took off in 2002, but the Enquirer turned away stories that could paint him in a bad light, two former American Media employees said,” adding, “Barry Levine … reminded them that Mr. Pecker wouldn’t allow it, these former employees said.” No impediment now exists.
Levine has a pedigree in political exposés. He was part of a team that uncovered veep candidate John Edwards’ love child, and in 2010 he told New York magazine, “I dream of an office in Washington where aides to senators and congressmen come in on their lunch hour and tell us stories.” In the same interview, he somewhat presciently said, “If I were in Russia, I’d be taken out by a hail of bullets, because that’s what happens to investigative journalists there.”
I can’t imagine any of this could change things. But you never know…
You can bet that everyone will be consuming the salacious details with unalloyed delight. Especially all those evangelical voters and conservative movement leaders who used to clutch their pearls over immoral behavior by political officials.
Turns out that the more immoral they are the more they love them. Who knew?
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