WEBVTT - Amazon Part 6: The Billionaire and the Tabloid 0:00:00.240 --> 0:00:04.880 January nine, two nine, at precisely six oh seven in 0:00:04.880 --> 0:00:08.840 the morning Pacific time, was a massive turning point in 0:00:08.880 --> 0:00:12.120 the life of Jeff Bezos. It's the divorce that has 0:00:12.160 --> 0:00:16.640 the tech world buzz. The world's richest man, Amazon CEO 0:00:16.800 --> 0:00:20.280 Jeff Bezos announcing he and his wife Mackenzie are splitting 0:00:20.360 --> 0:00:23.439 up after twenty five years. Bezos kicked all of this 0:00:23.600 --> 0:00:26.680 off by sending a tweet, the couple releasing a joint 0:00:26.720 --> 0:00:30.120 statement Wednesday, reading, in part, after a long period of 0:00:30.240 --> 0:00:34.400 loving exploration and trial separation, we have decided to divorce 0:00:34.600 --> 0:00:37.680 and continue our shared lives as friends. If we had 0:00:37.720 --> 0:00:40.360 known we would separate after twenty five years, we would 0:00:40.400 --> 0:00:44.440 do it again. This was shocking news to their colleagues, acquaintances, 0:00:44.880 --> 0:00:48.920 even casual friends. Most people had no reason to believe 0:00:49.000 --> 0:00:53.159 the relationship was strained. Of course, couples get divorced all 0:00:53.159 --> 0:00:56.480 the time. It's what happened next to change the course 0:00:56.480 --> 0:01:01.160 of the Amazon story. Later that day, a usepaper tabloid 0:01:01.200 --> 0:01:04.720 reported that Bezos was seeing another woman. What happens when 0:01:04.760 --> 0:01:06.600 one of the richest men in the world decides to 0:01:06.880 --> 0:01:09.880 divorce his wife and then starts dating the wife of 0:01:09.959 --> 0:01:12.760 one of the most powerful men in Hollywood. So wait, 0:01:13.400 --> 0:01:17.520 Jeff Bezos had a girlfriend. Bezos had presented a picture 0:01:17.520 --> 0:01:21.080 of an amicable separation in his tweet, but within just 0:01:21.160 --> 0:01:24.840 a few hours reports in the news media, we're complicating 0:01:24.920 --> 0:01:29.200 his tidy narratives. Not long after Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos 0:01:29.240 --> 0:01:32.119 and his wife Mackenzie announced they were divorcing after twenty 0:01:32.120 --> 0:01:35.240 five years of marriage, reports surface that Bezos had been 0:01:35.319 --> 0:01:39.360 dating TV personality Laurence Sanchez. She's now separated from her 0:01:39.440 --> 0:01:43.119 husband Patrick Whitesell. He's the co CEO of the Hollywood 0:01:43.120 --> 0:01:47.080 agency w M E and reportedly introduced Bezos to his wife. 0:01:47.360 --> 0:01:51.080 All three were photographed together at an Amazon party. Soon 0:01:51.360 --> 0:01:55.720 it became clear that the infamous supermarket tabloid, The National 0:01:55.840 --> 0:02:00.320 Inquirer was ready to publish the entire story it had 0:02:00.320 --> 0:02:05.040 the couple's private romantic text messages. The media had a 0:02:05.080 --> 0:02:09.200 field day on the real A daytime talk show host 0:02:09.320 --> 0:02:12.960 Lonnie Love lampoon the text messages with a dramatic reading, 0:02:13.480 --> 0:02:16.280 you know what I want. I want to get a 0:02:16.280 --> 0:02:20.840 little drunk with you tonight. Not falling down, no, just 0:02:20.880 --> 0:02:23.680 a little drunk. I want to talk to you and 0:02:23.960 --> 0:02:27.600 plan with you. Listen and laugh. I basically want to 0:02:27.800 --> 0:02:31.040 be with you when I want to fall asleep with 0:02:31.120 --> 0:02:33.640 you and wake up tomorrow, read the paper with you, 0:02:33.680 --> 0:02:37.120 and have coffee with you. Yes, me to say and sing. 0:02:37.639 --> 0:02:41.000 And of course even the President of the United States 0:02:41.120 --> 0:02:44.160 joined the pylon. Well, I wish your luck. I wish 0:02:44.160 --> 0:02:47.240 your luck. It's gonna be a beauty. Here was the 0:02:47.280 --> 0:02:52.800 world's then wealthiest man, a business icon, having an adulterous relationship, 0:02:53.160 --> 0:02:57.120 and even more shocking getting busted by a sleazy tabloid 0:02:57.800 --> 0:03:03.320 inside Amazon employees and executives where flabbergasted. Here's former VP 0:03:03.480 --> 0:03:09.120 Craig Berman. It was shocking when it came up because 0:03:09.240 --> 0:03:14.959 it was completely unexpected, and that was a turn that 0:03:15.880 --> 0:03:19.800 I'm not even sure Hollywood could come up with that 0:03:19.880 --> 0:03:24.000 kind of plot twist. You're listening to Foundering, I'm your host, 0:03:24.080 --> 0:03:30.919 brad Stone. The leaked story about Bezos's affair posts several mysteries. 0:03:31.880 --> 0:03:35.400 What happened to the bezos Is marriage, How did Bezos 0:03:35.440 --> 0:03:39.760 get involved with Laurence Sanchez, a former TV anchor, But 0:03:39.920 --> 0:03:43.760 most pressing of all, how did the National Enquirer get 0:03:43.840 --> 0:03:49.520 Jeff Bezos's personal text messages as well as intimate photographs, including, 0:03:50.000 --> 0:03:56.480 as they claimed at the time, a Dick pick I 0:03:56.520 --> 0:04:00.680 spent several months unraveling these questions and also looking into 0:04:00.720 --> 0:04:05.000 a huge allegation posed by Bezos himself that there may 0:04:05.000 --> 0:04:09.800 have been a global conspiracy to embarrass him. The resulting 0:04:09.840 --> 0:04:15.040 saga touched on the Washington Post, journalistic freedom, Donald Trump, 0:04:15.320 --> 0:04:18.560 the crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, and the murder of 0:04:18.680 --> 0:04:24.600 dissident journalist Jamaica Shoji. Unbelievably, Bezos managed to come out ahead. 0:04:25.360 --> 0:04:28.520 In a stroke of pr genius, he turned the tables 0:04:28.560 --> 0:04:32.440 on his tabloid adversaries, But in the end, the entire 0:04:32.520 --> 0:04:37.000 episode would have enormous repercussions for Bezos and for Amazon, 0:04:37.720 --> 0:04:41.360 a company nearing a one trillion dollar market value at 0:04:41.400 --> 0:04:44.200 the very height of its control over the Internet and 0:04:44.240 --> 0:04:48.839 the US economy. It's the tech mogul versus the tabloid. 0:04:49.279 --> 0:05:00.280 We'll tell you that story after the break. All tech 0:05:00.320 --> 0:05:04.200 companies need a powerful founding story, and the story of 0:05:04.279 --> 0:05:07.960 Jeff and Mackenzie driving to Seattle after leaving New York 0:05:08.000 --> 0:05:13.000 City in has been part of Amazon's mythology from day one. 0:05:14.000 --> 0:05:19.040 In April eighteen, Axel Springer CEO Matthias Stuffner asked Jeff 0:05:19.080 --> 0:05:22.320 Bezos about it in an on stage interview. The launch 0:05:22.320 --> 0:05:25.560 of Amazon was really something that you did together. Could 0:05:25.560 --> 0:05:28.800 you describe a little bit what Mackenzie's role was. First 0:05:28.800 --> 0:05:32.279 of all, Mackenzie, you know, she had married the stable 0:05:32.440 --> 0:05:35.880 guy working on Wall Street, and a year after we 0:05:35.960 --> 0:05:37.520 got married, I went to her and said, I want 0:05:37.560 --> 0:05:41.320 to quit my job, move across the country and start 0:05:41.440 --> 0:05:46.320 this uh internet bookstore. And Mackenzie, of course, like she said, great, 0:05:46.400 --> 0:05:49.840 let's go, because she wanted to support it, and she 0:05:49.960 --> 0:05:52.640 knew that I had always had this passion for invention 0:05:52.720 --> 0:05:55.800 and starting a company. It's a story that Bezos had 0:05:55.800 --> 0:05:59.440 been telling for more than twenty years example that Mackenzie's 0:05:59.440 --> 0:06:02.159 acceptance of this dot com dream was key to the 0:06:02.200 --> 0:06:05.880 company's founding. Here he is talking to Henry Blodget of 0:06:05.920 --> 0:06:15.320 Business Insider. You turned fifty recently. Any change outlook on life? Uh? No, 0:06:15.760 --> 0:06:20.000 not really, you know, I Uh, I'm still dancing into 0:06:20.000 --> 0:06:23.720 the office. I love my life. I have four kids. 0:06:24.480 --> 0:06:27.440 My wife claims to still like me. I don't question 0:06:27.520 --> 0:06:32.560 her aggressively on that. Um, I do the dishes every night, 0:06:32.600 --> 0:06:34.599 and I can see that actually makes her like me. 0:06:34.720 --> 0:06:37.360 It's a very odd thing. It's I think that too. 0:06:37.400 --> 0:06:40.119 I'm pretty convinced it's like the sexiest thing I do. 0:06:42.279 --> 0:06:45.360 His wife humanized him. She made him seem like more 0:06:45.440 --> 0:06:48.840 than a businessman whose creation was up ending retail and 0:06:48.920 --> 0:06:53.480 devastating small merchants. In the early days of Amazon, Mackenzie 0:06:53.520 --> 0:06:55.640 was in a girl to the business of the company. 0:06:56.080 --> 0:06:59.960 She was Amazon's first accountant. As the company added employee, 0:07:00.640 --> 0:07:02.680 she was able to move away from the day to 0:07:02.760 --> 0:07:07.839 day business of Amazon and pursue her own interests. At Princeton, 0:07:08.160 --> 0:07:11.320 she had studied to be a writer. She published two 0:07:11.360 --> 0:07:16.080 novels called The Testing of Luther Albright and Traps, and 0:07:16.200 --> 0:07:19.920 one of her rare public appearances, Mackenzie Bezos described her 0:07:19.960 --> 0:07:24.040 then husband as one of her best readers. Here she 0:07:24.240 --> 0:07:29.520 is in conversation with Charlie Rose. He's such a good reader, 0:07:29.760 --> 0:07:32.320 and I wanted to get his reaction to the actual 0:07:32.320 --> 0:07:34.240 story so that he was so that he could be 0:07:34.280 --> 0:07:36.480 surprised in the right places. You know, I still have 0:07:36.520 --> 0:07:39.480 the copy he read. It's great because he very generously 0:07:39.480 --> 0:07:41.400 went through and wrote all the spots that made him 0:07:41.440 --> 0:07:44.000 laugh out loud, and all the spots that made him try. 0:07:44.200 --> 0:07:48.880 Mackenzie illuminated another side of Bezos. It was quite endearing 0:07:49.120 --> 0:07:51.920 that he was the kind of husband so supportive of 0:07:51.960 --> 0:07:55.000 her that he would read and mark up her manuscripts 0:07:55.120 --> 0:07:59.280 line by line. Here was somebody routinely accused of killing 0:07:59.320 --> 0:08:05.600 books actively making one better. Inside Amazon, employees viewed Bezos 0:08:05.640 --> 0:08:10.360 as a family man. Craig Berman, a former communications executive, 0:08:10.560 --> 0:08:13.720 worked directly with Bezos for over a decade. In my 0:08:13.880 --> 0:08:19.360 experience in working closely with him, uh family was everything 0:08:19.400 --> 0:08:24.160 to Jeff. He was extremely and still is extremely close 0:08:24.360 --> 0:08:27.920 to his family. That the reverence he has for his parents, 0:08:28.040 --> 0:08:32.120 it's as high as it gets, and that flowed into 0:08:32.960 --> 0:08:36.880 his own personal family. Mackenzie was no longer active in 0:08:36.960 --> 0:08:40.480 Amazon after the earliest days, but critic says her opinion 0:08:40.559 --> 0:08:43.960 was still highly valued. She came in to help Bezos 0:08:44.000 --> 0:08:48.040 prepare for the most high stakes presentations, including the unveiling 0:08:48.280 --> 0:08:52.880 of the Kindle. So Kendall came out is very, very newsworthy, 0:08:52.960 --> 0:08:56.760 and Jeff was front and center unveiling these products on stage, 0:08:57.280 --> 0:09:02.560 and there was an extraordinary amount of preparation. Mackenzie did 0:09:02.600 --> 0:09:05.160 come in and she would sit in the audience and 0:09:05.200 --> 0:09:12.520 watch Jeff go through multiple rehearsals, and she would provide feedback. 0:09:13.000 --> 0:09:16.240 In these moments, Craig and all the Amazon employees could 0:09:16.280 --> 0:09:19.439 see the deep respect that Bezos had for his wife. 0:09:20.160 --> 0:09:23.240 It came across as a marriage of equals. I think 0:09:23.240 --> 0:09:29.840 he absolutely trusted her judgment and valued her perspective. And 0:09:29.880 --> 0:09:35.599 I think Jeff appreciated having a really smart person who 0:09:35.720 --> 0:09:38.679 could be pretty objective. You know, we would prepare for it. 0:09:38.679 --> 0:09:42.720 It's like this is a rehearsal that Mackenzie's coming to. Now. 0:09:42.800 --> 0:09:46.160 Who can really say what happens inside the private confines 0:09:46.200 --> 0:09:50.600 of a marriage, but clearly over the years Bezos and 0:09:50.679 --> 0:09:54.800 Mackenzie grew apart. She was a bookish writer who rarely 0:09:54.840 --> 0:09:57.959 made public appearances, and as far as I could tell, 0:09:58.240 --> 0:10:02.880 she's virtually unknown. And see how all social circles. Bezos 0:10:02.960 --> 0:10:06.240 was drawn to public events, the trappings of wealth, and 0:10:06.280 --> 0:10:09.800 the lure of adventures like scuba diving and space travel. 0:10:10.800 --> 0:10:14.479 As we discussed in an earlier episode, he also gravitated 0:10:14.520 --> 0:10:20.319 to Hollywood and the bright lights of celebrity. On December three, 0:10:20.760 --> 0:10:24.000 he hosted a star studied Hollywood party at his home 0:10:24.000 --> 0:10:29.000 in Beverly Hills, Mackenzie was nowhere to be found, and 0:10:29.080 --> 0:10:32.280 one of the guests was a woman named Laurence Sanchez. 0:10:33.040 --> 0:10:36.640 She had her own helicopter video production company, and she 0:10:36.800 --> 0:10:40.360 was a veteran broadcaster, the former host of the tabloid 0:10:40.440 --> 0:10:44.240 TV show Extra and the morning program Good Day l A. 0:10:44.920 --> 0:10:47.720 Here she is doing a TV segment on a private 0:10:47.800 --> 0:10:50.520 jet company. Not that it's an option for everyone, but 0:10:50.640 --> 0:10:54.440 Flight Options is a company that offers private jets. You 0:10:54.480 --> 0:10:57.199 don't even understand how exciting this is for me. This 0:10:57.280 --> 0:10:59.160 is the most amazing plane. And look, I want to 0:10:59.200 --> 0:11:03.840 take you inside this beauty. It is unbelievable. Lauren was 0:11:03.880 --> 0:11:07.400 at the party with her then husband Patrick Whitesell. He's 0:11:07.440 --> 0:11:11.760 a major Hollywood agent. At the party, Beazos was photographed 0:11:11.760 --> 0:11:15.319 with Lauren and Patrick. I'm not entirely sure if that's 0:11:15.360 --> 0:11:18.320 the first time they met, but it's clear that after 0:11:18.360 --> 0:11:21.520 the party, Beazos and Laurence started seeing more of each other, 0:11:22.160 --> 0:11:26.920 and by the beginning of laurence Helicopter Company was filming 0:11:27.000 --> 0:11:31.720 documentary videos for bezos is private space company Blue Origin. 0:11:33.120 --> 0:11:35.560 Now is the time to open the promise of space 0:11:35.600 --> 0:11:39.080 to all and lay the way for generations to come. 0:11:40.920 --> 0:11:44.959 We are a blue origin, and this is where it begins. 0:11:50.040 --> 0:11:55.960 Sometime that year, it appears they started dating. Strangely, Bazos 0:11:56.080 --> 0:11:59.360 carried on the relationship out in the open, even though 0:11:59.360 --> 0:12:03.679 he was still married. His total disregard for public attention 0:12:04.000 --> 0:12:08.120 was baffling. Either he didn't anticipate the coming avalanche of 0:12:08.160 --> 0:12:12.400 negative publicity or he didn't care. They were photographed at 0:12:12.400 --> 0:12:15.680 a hotel in Miami and at fancy restaurants in Venice 0:12:15.720 --> 0:12:21.080 Beach and Santa Monica. That December, Bezos had another celebrity 0:12:21.080 --> 0:12:26.079 filled party for Amazon Studios at his Hollywood home. Once again, 0:12:26.480 --> 0:12:31.280 Mackenzie wasn't there. This time, Lauren was by his side. 0:12:32.160 --> 0:12:35.880 So it was probably inevitable that someone would reveal their affair, 0:12:36.600 --> 0:12:38.800 and that Bezos would try to get ahead of the 0:12:38.840 --> 0:12:43.720 story by tweeting news of his divorce. Here's Craig. I 0:12:43.800 --> 0:12:51.160 was personally stunned, like jaw dropping to the floor, stunned. 0:12:51.960 --> 0:12:55.520 My colleagues were just as stunned. I think that was 0:12:55.600 --> 0:13:02.839 the universal reaction. It was so unexpected coming from this 0:13:02.920 --> 0:13:06.679 person who really, I mean, you talk about a reverence 0:13:07.000 --> 0:13:10.880 within an organization, Those those types of things just didn't happen, 0:13:11.600 --> 0:13:15.200 And so forward to happen at that level that the 0:13:15.280 --> 0:13:20.400 surprise factor was it was off the chart. Crig says 0:13:20.440 --> 0:13:23.960 that the most unsettling thing was that Bezos preached good 0:13:24.000 --> 0:13:27.760 decisions and sound judgment within the company. It was like 0:13:27.800 --> 0:13:32.120 Bezos had violated his own code. His employees felt let down. 0:13:32.960 --> 0:13:37.000 This is a person and a company that put such 0:13:37.040 --> 0:13:41.280 a premium on having good judgment, and here was an 0:13:41.320 --> 0:13:46.920 incident where it looked like this person maybe wasn't displaying 0:13:46.960 --> 0:13:51.000 a level of judgment that that people expected of him, 0:13:51.040 --> 0:13:55.079 and I think it was really jarring. Although Bezos got 0:13:55.120 --> 0:13:59.240 to announce his impending divorce himself, he couldn't contain the 0:13:59.360 --> 0:14:03.720 mail stroke them. The affair was revealed, the intimate text 0:14:03.800 --> 0:14:09.040 messages were leaked, and then things got even weirder. A 0:14:09.120 --> 0:14:13.319 few weeks later, on February seven, Bezos posted a remarkable 0:14:13.440 --> 0:14:17.880 essay to medium saying that he was being blackmailed. I 0:14:17.960 --> 0:14:20.960 asked my colleague to read a selection of it. Something 0:14:21.000 --> 0:14:24.560 unusual happened to me yesterday. Actually, for me, it wasn't 0:14:24.600 --> 0:14:28.520 just unusual. It was a first. I was made an 0:14:28.560 --> 0:14:31.600 offer I couldn't refuse, Or at least that's what the 0:14:31.640 --> 0:14:35.480 top people at the National Enquirer thought. I'm glad they 0:14:35.480 --> 0:14:38.000 thought that, because it emboldened them to put it all 0:14:38.000 --> 0:14:43.000 in writing, rather than capitulate to extortion and blackmail. I've 0:14:43.000 --> 0:14:47.080 decided to publish exactly what they sent me, despite the 0:14:47.120 --> 0:14:52.560 personal cost and embarrassment they threatened. This was entirely unprecedented, 0:14:52.920 --> 0:14:56.640 and there's a lot to unpack in here. In his essay, 0:14:56.960 --> 0:15:00.640 Beazo said he had hired private investigators to learn how 0:15:00.640 --> 0:15:05.040 the National Enquirer had gotten a text messages. The Inquirer 0:15:05.160 --> 0:15:08.640 seemed desperate to shut it down, and Bezos compet and 0:15:08.720 --> 0:15:12.320 paste and entire emails from the inquirers editor in chief. 0:15:13.040 --> 0:15:16.240 In the emails, the editor seemed to threaten to publish 0:15:16.280 --> 0:15:20.080 the intimate photographs that Bezos had exchanged with his girlfriend, 0:15:20.560 --> 0:15:24.480 including something the editor called a below the belt selfie. 0:15:25.280 --> 0:15:29.320 In his essay, Bezos poses the question why was the 0:15:29.400 --> 0:15:33.640 National Enquirer so desperate to stop his investigators from sniffing around? 0:15:34.360 --> 0:15:37.400 This is where Bezos leaves the realm of established facts. 0:15:37.960 --> 0:15:42.400 He starts to construct a hypothetical case. He suggested the 0:15:42.440 --> 0:15:46.080 real culprits of his leaked photos might have been enemies 0:15:46.080 --> 0:15:51.160 of the Washington Post. Remember Bezos owns the Post, and 0:15:51.240 --> 0:15:53.680 the Post had a long list of enemies. In two 0:15:53.760 --> 0:15:59.200 thousand nineteen, they had aggressively covered the Trump presidency. That's 0:15:59.240 --> 0:16:03.480 one enemy. Also, a few months before, a columnist for 0:16:03.480 --> 0:16:08.440 the Post named Jamalika Shoji was brutally murdered by Saudi agents, 0:16:09.000 --> 0:16:13.440 and the Post comprehensively reported on the atrocity. That made 0:16:13.440 --> 0:16:16.600 the Post a new enemy, the government of Saudi Arabia, 0:16:16.840 --> 0:16:20.960 whose Crown Prince allegedly ordered the killing. By the way, 0:16:21.120 --> 0:16:25.080 the Crown Prince denies this. Bezos just sort of put 0:16:25.120 --> 0:16:28.920 these things out there. He never says it explicitly, but 0:16:29.040 --> 0:16:32.760 he leaves readers to connect the dots that maybe his 0:16:32.880 --> 0:16:36.800 intimate text messages were leaked because of some connection between 0:16:36.840 --> 0:16:41.320 the National Enquirer, Donald Trump, the Saudi government and their 0:16:41.360 --> 0:16:45.760 common enemy, the Washington Post. Here's an excerpt of what 0:16:45.840 --> 0:16:49.280 he wrote. My ownership of the Washington Post is a 0:16:49.320 --> 0:16:54.240 complexifier for me. It's unavoidable that certain powerful people who 0:16:54.280 --> 0:16:58.720 experienced Washington Post news coverage will wrongly conclude I am 0:16:58.760 --> 0:17:02.680 their enemy. For reasons still to be better understood. The 0:17:02.720 --> 0:17:06.800 Saudi angle seems to hit a particularly sensitive nerve. The 0:17:07.040 --> 0:17:10.760 essay melted the Internet. In media and tech circles, it 0:17:10.920 --> 0:17:14.720 was all anyone could talk about at the time. I'm 0:17:14.720 --> 0:17:18.000 writing a book about Amazon and Bezos, and I have 0:17:18.160 --> 0:17:21.399 the uncomfortable revelation that the story is moving in a 0:17:21.440 --> 0:17:26.320 completely unexpected and tawdry direction. To write a book about 0:17:26.320 --> 0:17:29.000 this iconic tech leader, I'm going to have to write 0:17:29.000 --> 0:17:32.359 about a sex life. And I have to examine whether 0:17:32.400 --> 0:17:36.200 Bezos was the victim of a global conspiracy or is 0:17:36.280 --> 0:17:40.160 reel adversaries, tabloid journalists or the enemies of the Washington 0:17:40.280 --> 0:17:56.080 Post and a free press will unravel that mystery next. Okay, 0:17:56.240 --> 0:17:59.600 so the National Enquirer published an eleven page spread about 0:17:59.600 --> 0:18:04.200 Bezo his affair with Laurence Sanchez, and Bezos is now 0:18:04.240 --> 0:18:07.320 waging an all out war with the tabloid trying to 0:18:07.440 --> 0:18:11.159 understand how they got his text messages. He hired a 0:18:11.280 --> 0:18:15.920 very powerful private investigator named Gavin de Becker. This guy 0:18:16.040 --> 0:18:19.240 is kind of a legend in the security field. Here's 0:18:19.280 --> 0:18:22.920 Gavin describing his credentials in an editorial about his work 0:18:23.000 --> 0:18:26.439 for Bezos. I asked my colleague to read what he wrote. 0:18:27.000 --> 0:18:31.040 For forty years, I've advised at risk public figures and 0:18:31.160 --> 0:18:35.800 government agencies on high stakes security matters. My career has 0:18:35.840 --> 0:18:40.159 included working with the CIA, FBI at the Reagan White House, 0:18:40.560 --> 0:18:45.120 counseling foreign leaders, and advising on controversial murder cases. I've 0:18:45.119 --> 0:18:48.240 seen a lot, and yet I've recently seen things that 0:18:48.280 --> 0:18:53.760 have surprised even me. Almost immediately, Gavin suspicions fell on 0:18:53.760 --> 0:18:58.520 one of Laurence Sanchez's closest confidence, her older brother, Michael. 0:19:00.000 --> 0:19:02.720 Michael was a Hollywood talent manager who had helped Lauren 0:19:02.760 --> 0:19:05.879 with her career over the years. He later spoke to 0:19:05.920 --> 0:19:09.480 Fox News about his relationship with his sister. I've been 0:19:09.520 --> 0:19:12.200 managing Laurence since the day she came home from the hospital, 0:19:13.080 --> 0:19:15.800 and through the highest of highs and lowest of low's, 0:19:16.200 --> 0:19:19.719 I've always been there to do whatever she needs and 0:19:19.960 --> 0:19:23.720 to protect her whenever she needs protection. To me, Michael 0:19:23.760 --> 0:19:27.800 sounds a bit defensive here. He's trumpeting his professional relationship 0:19:27.840 --> 0:19:31.000 with his sister, all claiming that she needs his protection 0:19:31.480 --> 0:19:34.160 as if he's the guardian. I'm an accomplished fifty year 0:19:34.160 --> 0:19:37.560 old woman, and as we'll come to find out, Michael 0:19:37.600 --> 0:19:41.680 Sanchez was deeply involved in his sister's life. He went 0:19:41.680 --> 0:19:44.240 out for dinner several times with Bezos and Lauren while 0:19:44.280 --> 0:19:47.800 they dated, and he even attended another star studied party 0:19:47.800 --> 0:19:51.200 at bezos Is home. He described his first impressions of 0:19:51.240 --> 0:19:54.919 Jeff Bezos to Fox News well, to be perfectly honest, 0:19:54.960 --> 0:19:57.639 I didn't want to like him because it would have 0:19:57.720 --> 0:20:01.119 made all of our lives much simpler. But when I 0:20:01.160 --> 0:20:06.199 met him, he was charming, brilliant, loved flying and everyone 0:20:06.200 --> 0:20:08.359 in our family and his pilots, so we had a 0:20:08.400 --> 0:20:11.760 lot to talk about. And most importantly, he was he 0:20:11.920 --> 0:20:14.600 was deeply in love with Lauren. Michael is one of 0:20:14.600 --> 0:20:17.520 the strangest people I've ever interviewed for a business story. 0:20:18.080 --> 0:20:22.720 He's charismatic and charming, full of swaggering confidence and gossip, 0:20:23.440 --> 0:20:27.520 but he's also full of contradictions. He's an avid Trump supporter, 0:20:27.880 --> 0:20:31.840 and he's gay. He styles himself as a public relations guru, 0:20:32.000 --> 0:20:35.320 but imagines he has complete control over the media, which 0:20:35.359 --> 0:20:39.359 of course is impossible. As soon as his name surfaced 0:20:39.359 --> 0:20:42.480 as a leaker in the Bezos affair, Michael Sanchez said 0:20:42.520 --> 0:20:46.320 that any hint of his involvement was crazy. One soulce 0:20:46.359 --> 0:20:50.200 close to Jeff Bezos. His private investigators tells CBS News 0:20:50.240 --> 0:20:54.359 they've conducted multiple interviews with Michael Sanchez, the brother of 0:20:54.400 --> 0:20:58.360 Bezos his own girlfriend. They say Sanchez, a Trump support, 0:20:58.560 --> 0:21:00.840 discussed the matter with What just Stone and caught a 0:21:00.920 --> 0:21:06.320 page two of Mr Trump stulches defenders. Contacted by CBS News, 0:21:06.320 --> 0:21:09.760 a person close to Michael Sanchez dismissed allegations of his 0:21:09.840 --> 0:21:14.720 involvement as quote sloppy leaks and crazy conservative conspiracy theories. 0:21:15.119 --> 0:21:17.919 Gavin de Beecker confirmed to the Daily Beast that his 0:21:18.000 --> 0:21:21.919 firm did speak to Michael Sanchez, and in their conversations 0:21:22.240 --> 0:21:26.560 several things struck them as highly unusual. Gavin's firm says 0:21:26.640 --> 0:21:30.720 Michael shared outlandish theories about how the Inquirer might have 0:21:30.800 --> 0:21:34.960 learned about Bazos's affair with his sister. He suggested that 0:21:35.000 --> 0:21:38.280 the Deep State or American spies might have hacked into 0:21:38.280 --> 0:21:41.840 Bezos's phone. He also bragged about his ties to right 0:21:41.880 --> 0:21:45.160 wing Trump world types, and he suggested that he knew 0:21:45.200 --> 0:21:48.680 the editor of The National Enquirer and kept bragging about 0:21:48.720 --> 0:21:52.320 how he could manipulate the paper's coverage. By the end 0:21:52.320 --> 0:21:56.199 of these phone calls, the private investigator was convinced that 0:21:56.320 --> 0:22:01.600 Bezos's girlfriend's brother was a culprit soon Bezos's camp starts 0:22:01.640 --> 0:22:04.560 talking to the press too. I asked my colleague to 0:22:04.640 --> 0:22:08.480 read for Gavin de Becker. Michael Sanchez has been among 0:22:08.560 --> 0:22:11.439 the people we've been speaking with and looking at strong 0:22:11.600 --> 0:22:15.520 leads point to political motives. That's from an interview Gavin 0:22:15.520 --> 0:22:19.640 de Becker gave to The Daily Beast and probably no coincidence. 0:22:19.960 --> 0:22:23.960 The Daily Beast is owned by Jeff Bezos's friend Barry Diller. 0:22:25.040 --> 0:22:28.200 So then, in a non televised interview with Fox News, 0:22:28.640 --> 0:22:33.680 Michael Sanchez defends himself sort of. Here's anchor Howard Kurtz 0:22:33.960 --> 0:22:39.480 describing their conversation. The notion that Laurence Sanchez brother Michael Sanche, 0:22:39.520 --> 0:22:43.119 as a Hollywood talent manager, was somehow responsible for this. 0:22:43.160 --> 0:22:45.320 It didn't just sort of bubble up out of nowhere. 0:22:46.200 --> 0:22:49.320 Sources at am I and even the lawyer for David Pecker, 0:22:49.359 --> 0:22:51.679 the Inquirer owner who's a close friend of President Trump, 0:22:51.880 --> 0:22:54.040 have kind of tried to finger him. But Michael Sanche 0:22:54.080 --> 0:22:56.280 has told me on the record that there are in 0:22:56.320 --> 0:22:59.199 fact multiple suspects, that he's never seen any of this 0:22:59.280 --> 0:23:02.840 salacious pick chers or tex uh and that in fact, 0:23:03.359 --> 0:23:08.719 any attempt to implicate him this is one. So Michael 0:23:08.760 --> 0:23:12.680 Sanchez is out there talking to the media denying everything, 0:23:13.320 --> 0:23:17.119 and this puts the National enquire in a very awkward position. 0:23:17.800 --> 0:23:21.000 The guy they're hinting as their confidential source is saying 0:23:21.040 --> 0:23:25.240 he's not their confidential source. And if Michael isn't the source, 0:23:25.640 --> 0:23:29.000 then it sort of lent credibility to Bazos's theory that 0:23:29.080 --> 0:23:33.320 the Inquirers involved in some sort of political conspiracy. This 0:23:33.440 --> 0:23:37.479 was something the Inquirer absolutely wanted to shut down because 0:23:37.520 --> 0:23:41.160 they were already in hot water for something else. Tonight, 0:23:41.240 --> 0:23:44.680 the publisher of The National Inquirer making headlines of his own, 0:23:44.880 --> 0:23:49.760 David Pecker, granted immunity by federal prosecutors investigating Michael Cohen, 0:23:50.040 --> 0:23:53.080 the President's former fixer. According to a source familiar with 0:23:53.119 --> 0:23:55.840 the matter, Pecker is a longtime friend of the President's 0:23:55.880 --> 0:23:59.480 who helped catch and kill negative stories about him, including, 0:23:59.520 --> 0:24:02.239 according to Cohen, having his company pay a woman for 0:24:02.280 --> 0:24:04.879 exclusive rights to her account of an alleged affair with 0:24:04.920 --> 0:24:09.560 Donald Trump. Before the Basos ordeal, the National Inquirer was 0:24:09.600 --> 0:24:13.520 caught in an unrelated scandal involving another rich guy and 0:24:13.600 --> 0:24:17.600 his alleged affair. In that case, it was Donald Trump 0:24:18.040 --> 0:24:22.439 and an adult actress named Stormy Daniels. The publisher of 0:24:22.440 --> 0:24:25.720 The Inquirers a longtime friend of Trump's, and the tabloid 0:24:25.720 --> 0:24:30.560 went to unusual lengths to protect him. Essentially, they interviewed 0:24:30.600 --> 0:24:33.680 Stormy Daniels and other women who claimed to have damaging 0:24:33.720 --> 0:24:37.720 information about Trump. They bought the exclusive rights to the 0:24:37.760 --> 0:24:42.240 women's stories, and then they never ran the articles, and 0:24:42.320 --> 0:24:46.120 because the Inquirer had exclusive access, the women had no 0:24:46.200 --> 0:24:49.960 way to get their stories out. This practice is known 0:24:50.000 --> 0:24:53.160 in the media business as catch and kill because they 0:24:53.240 --> 0:24:56.479 catch an elusive piece of information and then kill it 0:24:56.480 --> 0:25:00.119 by suppressing the story. This became a problem for The 0:25:00.160 --> 0:25:04.199 Inquirer after Trump became a candidate for president, because it 0:25:04.240 --> 0:25:07.159 could be seen as a violation of campaign finance laws. 0:25:07.680 --> 0:25:12.320 Not good. Eventually, their publisher am I, signed a deal 0:25:12.359 --> 0:25:15.119 with the U. S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District 0:25:15.160 --> 0:25:19.159 of New York. If they violate the deal, their executives 0:25:19.160 --> 0:25:22.960 could be charged with a crime. So they were very 0:25:23.040 --> 0:25:27.560 sensitive to accusations of wrongdoing, especially charges that they were 0:25:27.600 --> 0:25:31.959 once again working with the Trump administration or say, the 0:25:31.960 --> 0:25:36.160 Saudi government. This is all happening in the background when 0:25:36.160 --> 0:25:40.080 the Inquirer goes to war with Bezos. So, with the 0:25:40.160 --> 0:25:43.719 catch and kill scandal hanging over their heads, the National 0:25:43.800 --> 0:25:48.520 Enquirers about to do something very, very unusual after the 0:25:48.600 --> 0:25:53.080 allegations of Saudi involvement. The National enquires lawyers also hit 0:25:53.119 --> 0:25:57.040 the TV circuit. It's taboo for news organizations to talk 0:25:57.080 --> 0:26:01.240 about their off the record sources, but two people watching 0:26:01.240 --> 0:26:05.160 the saga unfold, a lawyer for The Inquirer's parent company 0:26:05.320 --> 0:26:08.240 am I, seemed to come very close to doing just 0:26:08.440 --> 0:26:12.880 that on TV. Here's attorney Elkan Abramo. It's on ABC 0:26:13.119 --> 0:26:18.119 with George Stephanopoulos. It absolutely is not extortion and not blackmail. 0:26:18.920 --> 0:26:23.040 What happened was the story was given to the National 0:26:23.119 --> 0:26:27.280 Enquirer by a reliable source that had given information to 0:26:27.520 --> 0:26:31.200 the National Enquirer for seven years prior to this story. 0:26:31.920 --> 0:26:34.399 It was a source that was well known to both 0:26:34.480 --> 0:26:37.959 Mr Bezos and Miss Sanchez. Was it Michael Sanchez? I 0:26:38.000 --> 0:26:42.560 can't discuss who the source was. Uh just it's a 0:26:42.640 --> 0:26:46.080 confidential within a m I UM, so I'm not going 0:26:46.160 --> 0:26:49.800 to answer who the source was. It was somebody close 0:26:49.880 --> 0:26:53.280 to both Bezos and Miss Sanchez. It's crazy to me 0:26:53.320 --> 0:26:56.359 that a lawyer for the papers on TV dropping hints 0:26:56.359 --> 0:26:59.760 about the confidential source of their story. But you've got 0:26:59.840 --> 0:27:02.440 to keep in mind that it's in the National Enquire's 0:27:02.560 --> 0:27:06.160 best interests if the story starts and stops with one 0:27:06.280 --> 0:27:12.840 leaker without any political conspiracies. So case closed, right, A 0:27:12.960 --> 0:27:19.280