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Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg Law Podcast. I'm June Grosso. Every

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Speaker 1: day we bring you insight and analysis into the most

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Speaker 1: important legal news of the day. You can find more

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Speaker 1: episodes of the Bloomberg Law Podcast on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud

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Speaker 1: and on Bloomberg dot com slash podcasts. A feud between

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Speaker 1: President Trump and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos took a bizarre

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Speaker 1: turn after the multi billionaire accused allies of the President

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Speaker 1: of trying to extort him. Bezos published a blog post

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Speaker 1: yesterday alleging that the publisher of the National Enquirer tried

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Speaker 1: to blackmail him with embarrassing photos of Bezos and a

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Speaker 1: woman who was not his wife. The National Inquirer's parent

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Speaker 1: company said today that it acted lawfully in its coverage

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Speaker 1: of Bezos, but that it would thoroughly investigate the claim.

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Speaker 1: Joining me is Robert Mint's a partner McCarter in English, Bob,

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Speaker 1: what are the salient facts here from a legal point

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Speaker 1: of view? Well, and the story here really begins in

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Speaker 1: league January, when um the CEO of Amazon, Jeff Bezos

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Speaker 1: and his wife announced they were getting a divorce. And

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Speaker 1: that was two days before or two days after, I

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Speaker 1: should say the a national enquirer had informed him that

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Speaker 1: they had a story that they were going to run

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Speaker 1: about an affair and alleged affair that Mr Bezos was

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Speaker 1: was having UM and that then turned into an investigation

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Speaker 1: that Jeff Bezos decided to launch into am I to

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Speaker 1: determine how am I had obtained text messages and photographs

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Speaker 1: that they released UH shortly after he announced his divorce

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Speaker 1: and then threatened to release ten additional photographs much later.

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Speaker 1: Once that second threat came about UM, he rather than

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Speaker 1: succumbed to the demand that was being made by m I,

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Speaker 1: he decided to go completely public with it and allegedly

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Speaker 1: released all of the communications between the AMI lawyers and

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Speaker 1: a lawyer for one of his investigators, where am I

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Speaker 1: was making a demand that Mr Bezos call office investigation

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Speaker 1: and publicly make a statement that the story about his

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Speaker 1: affair was not something that was politically motivated. Now with

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Speaker 1: these emails, could am I defend against any extortion accusations

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Speaker 1: by claiming that these are between lawyers, They're simply trying

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Speaker 1: to resolve a dispute. A lot of things are said

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Speaker 1: in negotiations that people might consider outrageous. Is that a

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Speaker 1: possibility yes, I mean, I think that is one of

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Speaker 1: the defenses that we would see am I raise that

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Speaker 1: these were communications between lawyers. That's a significant fact in

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Speaker 1: terms of the way prosecutors might look at this. On

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Speaker 1: the other hand, prosecutors could also look at the conduct

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Speaker 1: by am I and say that it fits the definition

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Speaker 1: of what constitutes extortion because they were making a demand

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Speaker 1: of something of value from Mr Bezos, that is, have

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Speaker 1: to make up public statement that the story that they

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Speaker 1: ran on him was not politically motivated. Uh, And they

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Speaker 1: were doing that by threatening to release embarrassing photographs of

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Speaker 1: him if he did not agree to release that statement.

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Speaker 1: Would that be a hard sell for a jury? Now,

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Speaker 1: It's it's a little bit of a close call on

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Speaker 1: this one. The facts here are extremely unusual. It does

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Speaker 1: not fit within the textbook definition of what extortion is.

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Speaker 1: And typically extortion is a physical threat to harm somebody

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Speaker 1: and exchange for property, and usually that is pay me

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Speaker 1: money or I will harm you in some physical way.

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Speaker 1: That's classic sort of mob extortion. This is much more

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Speaker 1: subtle than that, because the threat was reputational damage, which

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Speaker 1: often does still fit the definition of harm. But then

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Speaker 1: I think this really turns on the question of whether

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Speaker 1: or not they were demanding in exchange for that something

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Speaker 1: of value. On the something of value that they were

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Speaker 1: demanding was a public statement by Mr Bezos that the

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Speaker 1: story reason that they were running about him, we're not

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Speaker 1: politically motivated. It's a close call, but it's something the

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Speaker 1: prosecutors will likely take a close look at. Now there's

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Speaker 1: another part to this, and that is the deal that

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Speaker 1: the National Inquirer has with federal prosecutors and non prosecution agreement,

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Speaker 1: And according to Bloomberg sources, federal prosecutors are reviewing the

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Speaker 1: National Enquirers handling of its story to determine if the

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Speaker 1: company violated the cooperation deal. Tell us about what is

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Speaker 1: normally in a cooperation deal and what prosecutors might be

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Speaker 1: looking into here. Sure, a non prosecution agreement is kind

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Speaker 1: of them the gold standard and what you're looking for

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Speaker 1: when you're a defense lawyer, because that is an agreement

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Speaker 1: by the U. S. Attorney's Office or other prosecutors not

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Speaker 1: to prosecute your client at all in exchange for cooperation.

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Speaker 1: But the terms of those deals are fairly standard, and

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Speaker 1: what it means is you have to provide full cooperation,

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Speaker 1: complete cooperation. You cannot law, you cannot mislead, you cannot

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Speaker 1: omit information. And the penalty for violating the terms of

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Speaker 1: that agreement is that not only can you be prosecuted

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Speaker 1: for any additional criminal conduct that you might engage in,

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Speaker 1: but also all of the past criminal conduct that the

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Speaker 1: prosecutors had agreed not to prosecute you for becomes viable again.

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Speaker 1: So there's a very steep price that somebody pays for

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Speaker 1: entering into a non prosecution agreement and that's subsequently violating it.

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Speaker 1: Now this would be this is the non prosecution agreement

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Speaker 1: just as to the company, so that the company would

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Speaker 1: be prosecuted if if they decided to uh cancel the deal,

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Speaker 1: not not any individual person. That's right. There was a

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Speaker 1: non prosecute screem and entered into by a m I

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Speaker 1: and that was presumably done because prosecutors in the Southern

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Speaker 1: District of New York determined that there was useful information

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Speaker 1: that they could get from a m I. And that

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Speaker 1: all arose in the context of these catch and kill

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Speaker 1: stories where the A m I had acknowledge that they

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Speaker 1: had paid certain individuals, including former played by model Karen McDougall,

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Speaker 1: to sell her story of an alleged affair with President

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Speaker 1: Trump to them and exchange for that they would pay

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Speaker 1: her and then not run the story. That was a

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Speaker 1: context in which this non prosecution agreement was entered into.

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Speaker 1: But now this really called him a question as to

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Speaker 1: whether or not disagreement will remain in place, and prosecutors

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Speaker 1: in New York now have to look at this conduct

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Speaker 1: and decide whether or not this violated the terms of

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Speaker 1: that agreement, and if so, what actions they need to take.

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Speaker 1: Just time for a yes or no here? Bob canbazos

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Speaker 1: not that he needs in money, but can he also

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Speaker 1: sue the National Enquirer civilly? Yeah? I think there would

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Speaker 1: also be a basis for a civil lawsuit there. There's

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Speaker 1: allegedly damaged your reputation, but that would turn likely on

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Speaker 1: the way in which those photographs were obtained and whether

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Speaker 1: or not that was done legally or by some illegal means.

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Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the Bloomberg Law Podcast. You can

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Speaker 1: subscribe and listen to the show on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud,

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Speaker 1: and on Bloomberg dot com slash podcast. I'm June Brosso.

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Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg m