Dan Weissman
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is being consumed by his own paranoia as he has suggested the Saudi government and potentially even President Donald Trump were behind the National Enquirer’s alleged threats to publish nude images of him unless he ceased his investigation into the media outlet’s acquisition of text messages exposing his extramarital affair.
In a conspiracy theory worthy of Alex Jones, Bezos’ private investigator, Gavin De Becker, has suggested a “government entity” is pulling the strings behind the National Enquirer, according to the Washington Post‘s Manuel Roig-Franzia during an interview on MSNBC.
“Gavin De Becker told us that he does not believe that Jeff Bezos’ phone was hacked,” Roig-Franzia said. “He thinks it’s possible that a government entity might have gotten hold of his text messages.”
In a rambling essay published on Medium, Bezos himself strongly hinted at Saudi and Trump involvement in the scandal.
“AMI, the owner of the National Enquirer, led by David Pecker, recently entered into an immunity deal with the Department of Justice related to their role in the so-called “Catch and Kill” process on behalf of President Trump and his election campaign,” Bezos wrote. “Mr. Pecker and his company have also been investigated for various actions they’ve taken on behalf of the Saudi Government.”
He then suggested his ownership of the fake news outlet the Washington Post as a potential motive for the Saudi and/or U.S. governments intercepting his text messages.
“My ownership of the Washington Post is a complexifier for me. It’s unavoidable that certain powerful people who experience Washington Post news coverage will wrongly conclude I am their enemy,” Bezos wrote. “President Trump is one of those people, obvious by his many tweets. Also, the Post’s essential and unrelenting coverage of the murder of its columnist Jamal Khashoggi is undoubtedly unpopular in certain circles.”
“Several days ago, an AMI leader advised us that Mr. Pecker is “apoplectic” about our investigation,” he added. “For reasons still to be better understood, the Saudi angle seems to hit a particularly sensitive nerve.”
Of course, Bezos’ defamatory allusions are absurd. For one, David Pecker quickly folded under the pressure of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, and is now cooperating with Mueller’s efforts to undermine the President in order to avoid prosecution. As a consequence, he is hardly someone likely to still be in league with Trump.
Nor is it likely that Saudi Arabia would make this move in the midst of Amazon’s ongoing expansion into the Kingdom.
Experts are far from convinced. Patrick Eddington, a national security analyst at the Cato Institute, was quick to write off the insinuations by De Becker and Bezos.
“What I’m seeing is basically a lot of hot air and allegations that are being made in the absence of providing any proof for public inspection,” he told Fox News.
While Bezos’ accusations are almost certainly unfounded, whoever is behind this situation is doing the United States a public service. The modern-day oligarch Bezos, who exploited the policies of the Obama administration to enrich himself, has taken subversion and fake news to a new level in America following his acquisition of the Washington Post. Today, the publication serves little more than a means for Amazon to promote its corporate interests.
