A day after Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos wrote that he faced “extortion and blackmail” from The National Enquirer, the newspaper tabloid’s owner, American Media Inc., today said it would investigate the executive’s charges, Variety reports.
At the same time, the company again defended publishing Bezos’ private texts last month in an Enquirer article. The company said, it ” believes fervently that it acted lawfully in the reporting of the story” and was “in good faith negotiations to resolve all matters.”
Bezos hired an investigator, Gavin de Becker, to look into how the communications were obtained. The Washington Post ran a story on Tuesday about whether the initial Enquirer piece was politically motivated. Bezos owns the newspaper.
In a Thursday online post titled No thank you, Mr. Pecker, referring to American Media CEO David Pecker, Bezos wrote at length about alleged threats made by the Enquirer to publish racy photos of him and a friend, Lauren Sanchez. Bezos claims American Media demanded an end to the Post’s investigation and that he and de Becker should publicly state that “they have no knowledge or basis for suggesting that AMI’s coverage was politically motivated or influenced by political forces.”