On the same day news broke that the FBI raided the home of Paul Manafort last month, the gossip magazine National Enquirer reported Wednesday night that the president’s former campaign chairman cheated on his wife with a younger woman.
The timing of the Enquirer’s Manafort story provoked skepticism by media outlets, and others, who noted Manafort’s central role in various Russia investigations, and the implications for President Trump.
Whoa. Does this National Enquirer attack on Manafort mean he’s turned on Trump? https://t.co/ExlncvLzFK
— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) August 9, 2017
Trump’s allies at the National Enquirer accuse Paul Manafort of “betraying his country” https://t.co/xejB5pki1h pic.twitter.com/P0AeIfh1dq
— Slate (@Slate) August 10, 2017
Manafort is a focus of federal and congressional investigations into Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election and whether the Trump campaign conspired with Moscow.
The day before the reported FBI raid of Manafort’s home, he voluntarily sat down with the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Manafort has been cooperating with Congress, previously providing documents to the Senate Judiciary Committee, as well as the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, including notes he took about a June 2016 meeting with Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner and a group of Russian citizens who promised damaging information on Hillary Clinton.
The Enquirer story alleging Manafort’s affair accuses him of “betraying his country.”
Trump has previously suggested he has leverage over the Enquirer, which embraced him throughout the presidential race and has continued its positive coverage of him as president.
MSNBC co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, with whom Trump has publicly feuded, alleged in June that White House officials threatened them with a negative Enquirer story.
“This year, top White House staff members warned that the National Enquirer was planning to publish a negative article about us unless we begged the president to have the story spiked,” they wrote in a Washington Post op-ed. “We ignored their desperate pleas.”
Trump tweeted his take:
“Watched low rated @Morning_Joe for first time in long time. FAKE NEWS. He called me to stop a National Enquirer article. I said no! Bad show.”
Watched low rated @Morning_Joe for first time in long time. FAKE NEWS. He called me to stop a National Enquirer article. I said no! Bad show
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 30, 2017
David Pecker, the chief executive of American Media, Inc., which owns the Enquirer, has been friends with Trump for decades. Last spring, the Enquirer made its first ever political endorsement, throwing its support to Trump.
During the campaign, the Enquirer attacked Trump’s rivals, running a story that linked Sen. Ted Cruz’s father to the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
The Enquirer’s post-election coverage of Trump has also been glowing, boasting in headlines, “Trump takes charge! Success in just 36 days!” and “Proof Obama wiretapped trump! Lies, leaks & illegal bugging.”
