Reuters / Jonathan Ernst
Donald Trump and Michael Cohen cooked up a plan to buy all of the damaging stories the National Enquirer had about him, according to The New York Times, with some of the reports dating back to the 1980s. The National Enquirer is accused of playing a key role in the silencing of adult-film actress Stormy Daniels about her alleged affair with Trump ahead of the 2016 election. The tactic is known as “catch and kill”—when a publication buys the rights to a story and then buries it. The Times reports Cohen and Trump were not only involved in the deals to silence Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal—they wanted all of the National Enquirer’s dirt on Trump. A recording that Cohen’s lawyer released last month of a conversation with Trump about payoffs has Cohen saying: “It’s all the stuff—all the stuff, because you never know.” The plan was reportedly never finalized. Lawyers for Trump and Cohen declined to comment.