Trump allegedly has a child with his housekeeper

[fskimospy]

Unless I’m completely reading this wrong they paid him exclusive rights to the story, not hush money. He couldn’t talk about it because then it wouldn’t be exclusive but I’m not reading that at all they are trying to bury it and keep him quiet...?

The agreement was that he couldn’t talk about it until they ran the story and they deliberately never ran the story or even bothered to investigate whether it was true or not. Classic hush money agreement.

 

[Sunburn74]

Unless I’m completely reading this wrong they paid him exclusive rights to the story, not hush money. He couldn’t talk about it because then it wouldn’t be exclusive but I’m not reading that at all they are trying to bury it and keep him quiet...?

That's how you kill a story.

Step 1: Buy the rights from a person
Step 2: Forbid them from speaking about it until the story is ran or face immediate financial destruction
Step 3: Never run the story

(if you want to be really coy, you can even have the person write a pretend article or column on the story as a means to further hide the true intent of the moves)

 

[fskimospy]

It’s odd that despite conservatives believing the media constantly conspires against them almost every time we see a genuine media conspiracy it’s to help conservatives.

 

[VRAMdemon]

The agreement was that he couldn’t talk about it until they ran the story and they deliberately never ran the story or even bothered to investigate whether it was true or not. Classic hush money agreement.

Yeah...If they wanted the increased circulation and advertising revenue they'd get by running a story, they would have run it already. They bought these stories to deliberately bury them.

Threatening to release the stories would give them leverage against Trump, but only if they could release them on their own terms. If they come out now under some sort of legal proceeding, AMI loses that leverage and looks bad for having held onto them. In that sense, they could decide that having this info is a liability.

Pecker may have genuinely destroyed the files. It's a lesson from Watergate and the tapes. If evidence exists, it can be subpoenaed. But if you destroy that evidence, you can never be compelled to produce it. And it you're going to destroy evidence you want to make sure you do it early before it officially is declared evidence and you face charges for destroying it.

Which begs the question...if AMI goes on record saying they don't have damaging stories on Trump, can they still enforce their exclusivity to publish them?

 

[Moonbeam]

It’s odd that despite conservatives believing the media constantly conspires against them almost every time we see a genuine media conspiracy it’s to help conservatives.

You don’t suppose all that condemnation of liberal corruption is just there to justify one’s own conservative corruption as fair play, do you?

 

[pauldun170]

I dont really care about this. That stuff is a family issue. I do like that it works as a nice counter for internet morons fixated on the Clintons.


There is probably a good % of anandtech members who have siblings they dont know about.

 

[fskimospy]

You don’t suppose all that condemnation of liberal corruption is just there to justify one’s own conservative corruption as fair play, do you?

Nahhhhhhhhhhhh

 

[pauldun170]

I don't think we know #2. I mean you guys have persistently claimed Trump is a germophobe. Her claim that they had unprotected sex is the one thing that makes me have some doubt about her story. Heck, I'm not a germophobe and I wouldn't touch her with somebody else's pecker.

Fern

Nope...
Trump raw dogs.
He's one of those idiots who thinks he can tell when "A girl is clean" just by looking at her.


Remember that this the type of idiot who eats fast food. You can't be a germaphobe and eat McDonalds or KFC.

 

[woolfe9998]

Fake news.

Not going to argue with you here over whether this alleged affair actually took place. But I want to point out that there is no reason to label this "fake news" unless you're on board with Trump's dishonest definition of the phrase. The news story here is the man's allegations, and the fact he was paid off. Do you deny that he made the allegations and was paid off?

This is not a quibble. It isn't right to imply that the media is somehow fabricating the story. If there was any fabrication here, it's on the part of the doorman.

 

[cytg111]

Without any facts at all but knowledge of Trumps persona.. Did Trump knock up one of his maids? Odds? More likely than not.

 

[Moonbeam]

Not going to argue with you here over whether this alleged affair actually took place. But I want to point out that there is no reason to label this "fake news" unless you're on board with Trump's dishonest definition of the phrase. The news story here is the man's allegations, and the fact he was paid off. Do you deny that he made the allegations and was paid off?

This is not a quibble. It isn't right to imply that the media is somehow fabricating the story. If there was any fabrication here, it's on the part of the doorman.

My feeling and objection was related to this. I think he incorrectly conflated two different notions to create a single critique and used the probability, the likely reality of one of them, to imply the reality of the second.

We have what you just described, which I think is accurate and makes perfect sense and blows a hole in his fake news statement, conflated with a different and this time negative reality that there exists a partisan irrational lust or confirmation bias among liberals that too readily wants to accept as factual any and all dirt that may implicate Trump as horrible person.

Where I think I have my major disagreement with DSF is not in that liberals are free of bias or even insanity, but the appropriateness of his pointing that out in threads where the emphasis, it seems tome, should be elsewhere, say on the fact that we likely have a person who can likely be blackmailed over his Russia connections. Let’s get rid of Trump and then see how large a problem we have with the authoritarian left.

 

[woolfe9998]

My feeling and objection was related to this. I think he incorrectly conflated two different notions to create a single critique and used the probability, the likely reality of one of them, to imply the reality of the second.

We have what you just described, which I think is accurate and makes perfect sense and blows a hole in his fake news statement, conflated with a different and this time negative reality that there exists a partisan irrational lust or confirmation bias among liberals that too readily wants to accept as factual any and all dirt that may implicate Trump as horrible person.

Where I think I have my major disagreement with DSF is not in that liberals are free of bias or even insanity, but the appropriateness of his pointing that out in threads where the emphasis, it seems tome, should be elsewhere, say on the fact that we likely have a person who can likely be blackmailed over his Russia connections. Let’s get rid of Trump and then see how large a problem we have with the authoritarian left.

Yes, I agree he's conflating the liberal bias in being too readily willing to accept any dirt on Trump - which as biases go is pretty mild since it's easy to see why anyone might jump too quickly to believe this given his past behavior - with the notion of media bias/fabrication of a story. But he's doing something else: he's mimicking Trump's overbroad definition of fake news. Fake news are stories which are fabricated from whole cloth, not stories based on sources who may or may not be credible. There's no reason whatsoever to take a pot shot at the media here. Whether ultimately true or not, the story is newsworthy given the recent indictments handed down over two other hush money payments related to past sexual indiscretions.

This media didn't report the alleged affair as fact. It reported only that a door man alleged the affair, and that he was paid off to keep quiet. Unless either or both of those facts are untrue, it isn't fake news.

 

[Moonbeam]

Yes, I agree he's conflating the liberal bias in being too readily willing to accept any dirt on Trump - which as biases go is pretty mild since it's easy to see why anyone might jump too quickly to believe this given his past behavior - with the notion of media bias/fabrication of a story. But he's doing something else: he's mimicking Trump's overbroad definition of fake news. Fake news are stories which are fabricated from whole cloth, not stories based on sources who may or may not be credible. There's no reason whatsoever to take a pot shot at the media here. Whether ultimately true or not, the story is newsworthy given the recent indictments handed down over two other hush money payments related to past sexual indiscretions.

This media didn't report the alleged affair as fact. It reported only that a door man alleged the affair, and that he was paid off to keep quiet. Unless either or both of those facts are untrue, it isn't fake news.

When I said my feeling was related to yours, I only wanted to add the notion of conflation. I already understood and fully agree with this.

 

[trenchfoot]

Tell us again about family values, Republicans

If Repubs think that they can reclaim the moral high ground after Trump leaves office of which I'm sure they will try to, I'd like to remind them that they have already defined themselves as having zero credibility in this regard.

There is no going back for them on this as well as purportedly being proponents of fiscal conservatism and personal responsibility.

I do see them playing the "Well Democrats are just as bad" card, but the Dems weren't the ones claiming the moral high ground as theirs and theirs alone to begin with. It was the Repubs who accused the Dems of being anti-religious baby murdering heathen in order to seize the moral high ground for themselves.

Not going to work anymore.

 

[imported_tajmahal]

Pin your political wet dreams on this story folks.

 

[Jhhnn]

I dont really care about this. That stuff is a family issue. I do like that it works as a nice counter for internet morons fixated on the Clintons.


There is probably a good % of anandtech members who have siblings they dont know about.

I don't much care, either. It's what I'd expect from a wealthy misogynist cocksman like Trump. If true, I hope he has provided financial support.

I don't understand why the evangelicals don't seem to care... maybe it's because their pro-life crusade has blinded them to other considerations like character & decency.

 

[marincounty]

Look into the accuser and his credibility. Look at the comments from his ex-wife as well as the comments from the woman who allegedly had the affair Trump and allegedly birthed his love child. Unlike others that are so eager to believe, I'm going to need some damn good evidence before lending one iota of credence to this "news" story.

Wait,you're going to believe the ex-wife but not the accuser? Ex-wives would never make something up about their ex.

 

[senseamp]

Are people still skeptical that there could be a pee pee tape?

 

[JSt0rm]

Are people still skeptical that there could be a pee pee tape?

no

 

[imported_tajmahal]

Are people still skeptical that there could be a pee pee tape?

You guys still having wet dreams about the tape? What's it been, 2 years? Any minute now. lol

 

[UNCjigga]

I think this story is bullshit... I think at some point in the campaign (I.e. after Access Hollywood tape leak) Trump's people would be willing to pay off anyone to catch and kill any story regardless of legitimacy.

This actually makes sense if you believe there was collusion with Russia... if the Trump campaign was expecting to fill the news cycle with dirt on Clinton, they wouldn't want any negative news about Trump distracting from that.

 

[Jhhnn]

I think this story is bullshit... I think at some point in the campaign (I.e. after Access Hollywood tape leak) Trump's people would be willing to pay off anyone to catch and kill any story regardless of legitimacy.

It's an interesting question if such expenditures can be sanitized if they're performed by PACs. It's easy to understand how they could go unnoticed if the buyer weren't just fronting for the campaign, if they just spent their own money. If worse came to worse, the candidate could claim they had no knowledge.

 

[zinfamous]

Unless I’m completely reading this wrong they paid him exclusive rights to the story, not hush money. He couldn’t talk about it because then it wouldn’t be exclusive but I’m not reading that at all they are trying to bury it and keep him quiet...?

Have you been buried this long to be completely unaware of the known relationship between Pecker, the Enquirer, and their track record of paying off people to kill damaging stories regarding Donald Trump? This is "kinda" big. It isn't secret. It's called catch and kill. It is exactly hush money: You pay for "exclusive rights" then never publish. Do you understand?

Odd that you would feign naivete over this practice that has been thoroughly documented for well over a year now, and has been at the heart of many of Trump's seemingly unending trail of scandals.

 

[VRAMdemon]

I'm still calling BS, especially since the mother hasn't come forward. If the doorman got 30k, how much did the mom get?

 

[Jhhnn]

I'm still calling BS, especially since the mother hasn't come forward. If the doorman got 30k, how much did the mom get?

So what? The story had enough credibility that the Enquirer tried to catch it & kill it so that none of their competitors could publish it. If it's like the Stormy Daniels story, the Trump campaign then repaid them under the table via a shell entity. That's a felony to which Cohen has plead guilty & implicated Trump in the process.

The story writers couldn't approach Trump directly for money because that would have been blackmail. They can legally sell it to a tabloid, however, to accomplish the same ends. It's just part of Trump's world where everybody has their price.