Two Directors of Postmedia, Canada's largest Newspaper Chain, were part of Trump's Illegal Hush-Money Scheme

In October 2016, David Pecker and Daniel Rotstein were appointed to the Postmedia Board as they were taking money from Trump's campaign to silence women.

Two-thirds of Canada’s media chain, Postmedia is owned by Chatham Asset Management, a New Jersey company whose media executives were responsible for covering up Donald Trump’s hush money trial, which resulted in his 34 felony convictions. Chatham Asset Management is where Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen went to work after the 2016 election campaign.

It also owned American Media Inc, or AMI - the the parent company of the National Enquirer, whose CEO, David Pecker was the first witness for the prosecution in Donald Trump’s hush-money criminal trial. The state alleged “Pecker helped Trump during the 2016 campaign by burying negative stories about him and attacking his rivals.”

The New York Times reported that “Pecker teed up falsified records charges.”:

In his third day of testimony, Mr. Pecker, the former publisher of The National Enquirer, described his involvement in the suppression of the stories of two women who claimed to have had sex with Mr. Trump: Karen McDougal, a Playboy model, and Stormy Daniels, the porn star whose 2016 hush-money payoff forms the basis of the prosecution’s case.

As part of a so-called catch-and-kill scheme, Mr. Pecker testified that his company, AMI, paid Ms. McDougal $150,000 to purchase her story, with no intention of publishing anything about an affair with Mr. Trump.

But Mr. Pecker expected repayment. He said he asked Michael D. Cohen, who was Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer, who would handle the reimbursement, and Mr. Cohen responded, “The boss will take care of it.”

Because Mr. Pecker had such a hard time getting Mr. Trump to pay up, he was unwilling to buy a third story: Ms. Daniels’s account of sex with Mr. Trump.

“I am not a bank,” Mr. Pecker recalled saying.

Mr. Pecker suggested that Mr. Cohen buy Ms. Daniels's story instead, leading to the hush-money deal, repayments and records at issue in this trial.

On October 19, 2016, the Toronto Star reported that David Pecker had been named to the board of Postmedia.

Pecker and the National Inquirer played an integral part in coordinating hush money payments to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal so they would remain silent about having had sex with Donald Trump. As a publisher of a tabloid that breaks news, he agreed to suppress stories that might have been damaging to a particular candidate, with the hope of swaying the outcome of the election.

That is an entire media outlet, the National Enquirer, was effectively acting as an arm of one political party’s campaign. Not only would the Enquirer only run articles critical of one party and presidential candidate, not only would it refuse to print critical articles of their chosen candidate, but they played an active role in paying money to silence women with the intention of keeping their stories from becoming public.

That’s not an allegation, or an accusation. It’s a confession.

Pecker was appointed to the Board of Postmedia in October 2016, the same month that these hush-money payments were being made.

AMI’s guilt is not in question. AMI admitted that they broke the law.

This is the New York Times reporting on David Pecker’s testimony in court:

Mr. Pecker, who began his four days on the stand on Monday and said that he had come to an agreement with Mr. Trump and Mr. Cohen in a meeting at Trump Tower in August 2015.

There, Mr. Pecker said, he agreed to run what amounted to a covert propaganda operation for Mr. Trump, trumpeting his candidacy while publishing negative stories about his Republican opponents. Most importantly, Mr. Pecker said, he had agreed to be the campaign’s “eyes and ears,” watching out for potentially damaging stories.

Pecker remained on the Postmedia Board for almost two years until he resigned when news broke of his implication in the hush-money scandal, in August 2018.

Again -

“at no time during the negotiation or acquisition of [Woman 1's] story did AMI intend to publish the story or disseminate information about it publicly." Rather, AMI admitted that it made the payment to ensure that Woman I “did not publicize damaging allegations" about the Defendant "before the 2016 presidential election and thereby influence that election."

That is really a stupendous level of corruption, and what raises it from grubby to terrifying is that this was how David Pecker ran the National Inquirer and other magazines.

Pecker’s business model of private surveillance, and hush money and private kompramat that could be used to threaten and intimidate wasn’t limited to the National Inquirer, but extended to everything from weightlifting and fitness magazines

What’s truly disturbing is that it wasn’t a one-off: it was part of Pecker’s business model.

He had made a practice of paying people to stay silent for years.

In 2003, Mr. Pecker’s company, American Media Inc., bought several muscle magazines founded by a mentor of Arnold Schwarzenegger, the bodybuilding legend and movie star. When Mr. Schwarzenegger, who was often featured in those magazines, jumped into the recall election to replace California’s governor, Mr. Pecker ordered his staff to buy up negative stories about him in order to protect his investment, former employees said.

Mr. Pecker’s publications made deals with other celebrities as well, though not always for money. He traded away dirt about the golfer Tiger Woods in exchange for an exclusive interview in Men’s Fitness in 2007, according to people with knowledge of that episode.

Pecker did the same for Harvey Weinstein, as Ronan Farrow reported in ‘Catch and Kill” - a term for catching the source of a story so you can “kill” it.

DAVE DAVIES: how did the reporting on Weinstein lead to this stuff about efforts to protect Trump?

FARROW: Well, it's very simple because Harvey Weinstein was also working with the National Enquirer and its parent company at the time, AMI, in much the same way that Donald Trump was. The difference was this wasn't election-related in Harvey Weinstein's case. And so, you know, it didn't ultimately emerge in court as something with, you know, actual legal ramifications. But it was a tremendously important story just from the standpoint of the media suppression that was happening. And many of us who broke those initial stories about Weinstein became aware in the course of that reporting that one of the levers that he had used to keep allegations of serial rape against him so quiet for so long, at least in terms of mainstream public discourse, was that he had relied on AMI to help go after his enemies and dig up dirt on people he wanted to get rid of and also to help identify negative information out there about him and catch and kill it.

So that happened, for instance, with respect to Ambra Gutierrez, a model that he was accused of groping, and the same Manhattan district attorney, actually, Cy Vance Jr., who initially started this investigation into Trump that in a roundabout way led to this verdict in the end. He had dropped efforts to pursue Weinstein in the wake of that. And part of Weinstein's strategy to ensure that there weren't criminal repercussions was to really go after accusers, like this model Gutierrez, where there were war room meetings between the Enquirer folks and him and his people saying, you know, how do we destroy her, essentially?

So this being a kind of Byzantine part of the modern architecture of power and media influence was fascinating to me, and it was very apparent early on from my conversations with sources there who were doing that sort of thing for Weinstein at the Enquirer, that maybe the most consequential example of what they were doing in this vein was for and with Donald Trump.

“Catch and Kill” shows that these suppose media outlets - rather than just gathering news for the purpose of sharing it - have been working as private intelligence gathering outfits for which can then be used to control people with credible threats of exposure, reputational destruction, as well as silencing and suppressing stories in order to protect the powerful with the goal of influencing the outcomes of elections.

This is truly monumental corruption - it represents a toxic opposite to everything that a free press is supposed to represent. It combines mass deception, collecting and hiding the secrets of the powerful in order to protect them, intimidating and destroying the lives of those who try to call it out, and because it is all private.

That is not a media outlet acting in the public interest. It is a secret, for-profit- private police, espionage and propaganda agency that operates on behalf of chosen political candidates. While private investigators have to follow the law, they do not require warrants nor do they have the oversight that public police and investigators do.

This is a stupendously corrupt enterprise - and the person who was running it, David Pecker, was appointed to the board of Postmedia- the largest newspaper chain in Canada.

This is an individual who buried stories for Harvey Weinstein and Donald Trump, and set out to ruin the reputations of their accusers.

Notably, while Pecker stepped down from Postmedia’s Board in 2018 when news of his involvement with the buying the silence of people making politically inconvenient and truthful disclosures, another AMI executive is still on the Board - Daniel Rotstein.

Daniel Rotstein (Director)

Mr. Rotstein serves as the Director of Human Resources/Risk Management for the City of Pembroke Pines, Florida and provides human resources, risk management, and administrative consulting services to companies in various industries, including American Media, Inc. Prior to that, Mr. Rotstein was the Executive Vice President, Human Resources and Administration, for American Media, Inc.

Not just any AMI Executive Vice President: an AMI Vice President for whom an invoice was prepared and funnelled in order to conceal that it was from the Trump Campaign.

Rotstein was mentioned in Trump’s hush money trial that led to 34 felony convictions.

From reporting on the case on Yahoo News.

In September 2016, Pecker testified, Cohen suddenly told Trump wanted all of the boxes of source material the Enquirer had amassed on McDougal, which was in storage, and held the damaging details of her stories. Trump was worried that if Pecker “got hit by a bus,” or if the company was sold, he wanted to ensure no one else would be able to obtain the information. Cohen was insistent that Pecker get the boxes to Trump as soon as possible, contacting him again and again during the month, pressing him on the issue.

Trump wanted Pecker and AMI to transfer the McDougall life rights to him, Pecker said. He explained that he believed McDougal’s “writing” duties were worth $25,000, and thus offered to knock Trump’s reimbursement down to $125,000.

“Michael Cohen wanted the contract done yesterday, and this was going on toward the end of September [2016],” Pecker said, explaing that he wanted to get paid back before Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal quarter. He said an invoice was prepared and funneled through AMI human resources executive Daniel Rotstein because money was flowing between AMI and the Trump Organization would “raise a lot of questions.” [emphasis mine.]

Pecker said he later spoke to AMI’s legal counsel about the updated plan, and subsequently decided he no longer wanted to be paid back. He was prevented from explaining what the lawyer’s advice was, by an objection from the defense, but he had previously mentioned his fear of being exposed to legal jeopardy.

Postmedia’s directors were operating the National Enquirer as an arm of the Trump campaign. David Pecker did it for Harvey Weinstein as well.

In fact, Rotstein joined Postmedia’s Board at the same time Pecker did - in October 2016.

Aside from the National Post and Financial Post, Postmedia owns many of the newspapers in almost every major city in Canada often both of them. This is the list media properties that Postmedia owns.

https://www.postmedia.com/brands/

• In BC: The Province, The Vancouver Sun & the Prince George Post

• In Alberta: Airdrie Echo, Bow Valley Crag & Canyon; Calgary Herald; Calgary Sun; Cochrane Times; Daily Herald Tribune; Devon Dispatch; Edmonton Examiner; Edmonton Journal; Edmonton Sun; Fort McMurray Today; La Nouvelle Beaumont News; Leduc Rep; Peace River Record-Gazette; Pincher Creek Echo; The Cold Lake Sun; The Drayton Valley Western Review; The Fairview Post; The Grove Examiner; The Hanna Herald; The High River Times; The Leduc-Wetaskiwin County Market; The Mayerthorpe Freelancer; The Nanton News; The Peace Country Sun; The Record; The Sherwood Park News; The Stony Plain Reporter; The Vulcan Advocate; The Wetaskiwin Times;The Whitecourt Star

  Vermilion Standard

• Saskatchewan: Regina Leader-Post; Saskatoon Star-Phoenix

  The Journal (Melfort/Nipawin)

• Ontario: Business, London, Chatham-Kent; This Week, Chatham;

  Clinton News-Record, Clinton; Cochrane Times-Post, Cochrane; Community Press, Belleville; Exeter Lakeshore Times-Advance, Exeter; Gananoque Reporter, Gananoque; Goderich Signal-Star, Goderich; Grey Bruce This Week, Owen Sound; Kingston & Frontenac This Week, Kingston;  Kingston Whig-Standard, Kingston; London Free Press, London; Lucknow Sentinel, Lucknow; Mitchell Advocate, Mitchell; Napanee Guide, Napanee; Norfolk & Tillsonburg News, Tillsonburg; North Bay Nugget, North Bay; Northern News This Week, Kirkland Lake; Farmer, London; Ottawa Citizen, Ottawa; Ottawa Sun, Ottawa; Paris Star, Paris; Pembroke Observer & News, Pembroke; Sarnia This Week, Sarnia; Sault This Week, Sault Ste. Marie; Seaforth Huron Expositor, Seaforth; Sentinel-Review, Woodstock; Shoreline Beacon, Port Elgin; Simcoe Reformer, Simcoe; St. Thomas Times-Journal, St. Thomas; Standard Freeholder, Cornwall; Strathroy Age Dispatch, Strathroy; The Beacon Herald, Stratford; The Chatham Daily News, Chatham; The County Weekly News, Picton; The Courier Press, Wallaceburg; The Daily Press, Timmins; The Expositor, Brantford; The Intelligencer, Belleville; The Kincardine News, Kincardine; The Londoner, London; The Mid-North Monitor, Espanola; The Observer, Sarnia; The Post, Hanover; The Recorder & Times, Brockville; The Sault Star, Sault Ste. Marie; The Standard, Elliot Lake; The Sudbury Star, Sudbury; The Sun Times, Owen Sound; The Timmins Times, Timmins; The Trentonian, Trenton; Today's Farmer, London; Today's Farmer, Chatham; Toronto Sun, Toronto; West Elgin Chronicle, West Elgin; Wiarton Echo Wiarton; Windsor Star Windsor;

• Quebec: Montreal Gazette, Montreal, Quebec

• New Brunswick: Bugle-Observer, Woodstock; Info Weekend, Edmundston;

  Kings County Record, Sussex; L'Étoile Acadian Coast; Miramichi Leader Miramichi; Telegraph-Journal Saint John; The Daily Gleaner Fredericton; The Northern Light Bathurst; The Tribune Campbellton; Times & Transcript.

I’ll quote Bruce Bartlett, whom I consider to be one of the most interesting and insightful people in American politics. Bartlett is a lawyer and policy expert who worked for Ron Paul and Jack Kemp in the 1970s. He literally drafted the bill that became the “Reagan tax cut” before experiencing an intellectual crisis, where he realized that Keynesian economics worked. He felt compelled by his own sense of integrity to abandon the Republicans.

Of the Kamala Harris interview on Fox News, he wrote:

“For those watching Fox for the first time for the Harris interview, this crap goes on 24/7. It's first and foremost a Republican propaganda channel, with no resemblance to a true news channel. Every penny of the Fox budget should be considered a Trump campaign contribution.”

This is how media run by Rupert Murdoch and Postmedia work. Yes, there is some actual reporting, but it is relentlessly one-sided. They are all first and foremost for political propaganda. They only sing the praises of one side, while relentlessly attacking their opponents, they are in the business of burying bad stories and keeping secrets as well.

So if you want to understand why this isn’t a story in Canada - now you know.

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