DEMANDS

National Enquirer Tried to Force Bezos to Say They Didn’t Hack Him

A draft Enquirer contract laid out a trade: no racy photos in exchange for a “no hacking” statement.

The National Enquirer’s parent company tried to strong-arm Jeff Bezos into saying that he did not find any any evidence of “electronic eavesdropping or hacking” or outside political influence in his probe of how and why his texts were leaked to the supermarket tabloid, Bezos’ investigator says. In an exclusive op-ed for The Daily Beast, security adviser Gavin de Becker says AMI threatened to release intimate photos of Bezos unless he signed an eight-page contract that contained those demands. De Becker says he and Bezos did not ink the contract—and in the op-ed de Becker reveals that their probe concluded that “the Saudis had access to Bezos’ phone, and gained private information.”

Read de Becker's full op-ed here.