NEW YORK _ The parent company of the right-wing tabloid National Enquirer has admitted it helped bury salacious stories about President Donald Trump ahead of the 2016 election, federal prosecutors in New York revealed Wednesday.
The U.S. Attorney's Office in Manhattan said American Media Inc. was given a non-prosecution agreement in exchange for admitting that it helped the Trump campaign facilitate an illicit $150,000 pre-election hush payment to Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model who had threatened to go public with claims she had sex with the Trump in 2006.
"AMI further admitted that its principal purpose in making the payment was to suppress the woman's story so as to prevent it from influencing the election," said Robert Khuzami, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York.
Michael Cohen, Trump's former personal fixer, pleaded guilty to campaign finance crimes over the McDougal payoff and on Wednesday was sentenced to three years in prison on a slew of charges. Prosecutors, meanwhile, say the president directed and coordinated the payment, potentially opening him up to criminal liability.
AMI did not immediately return a request for comment, but an employee who asked not to be identified told the New York Daily News the company's cooperation with federal prosecutors is a sensitive topic.
"We're not allowed to talk about it," the employee said outside AMI's downtown Manhattan office.
