Alleged Ex-Trump Paramour Says ‘Catch And Kill’ Practice Kept Her Quiet

Karen McDougal, photographed in 2010, some four years after an alleged affair with Donald Trump.

Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images

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Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images

Karen McDougal, photographed in 2010, some four years after an alleged affair with Donald Trump.

Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images

A woman who had an alleged nine-month sexual relationship with Donald Trump more than a decade ago, is speaking on the record for the first time about signing a document from an apparent Trump media ally that effectively silenced her story.

Karen McDougal told reporter Ronan Farrow in a piece published Friday in The New Yorker that she regretted signing the contract with American Media Inc., National Enquirer‘s parent company.

“At this point I feel I can’t talk about anything without getting into trouble,” McDougal told Farrow. “I’m afraid to even mention his name.”

Farrow reports, “On August 5, 2016, McDougal signed a limited life-story rights agreement granting A.M.I. exclusive ownership of her account of any romantic, personal, or physical relationship she has ever had with any ‘then-married man.’”

The Wall Street Journal first reported on the agreement in 2016, saying A.M.I., whose C.E.O and chairman, David Pecker, has called Trump “a personal friend,” paid McDougal $150,000 for the rights to her story.

The magazine never published a piece about it.

The company said that is because it did not find the story credible, Farrow reports.

Of the $150,000 A.M.I. reportedly paid, McDougal received about $80,000 after others involved in the deal took fees, Farrow reports. The company also reportedly agreed to publish regular columns authored by McDougal and feature her on two covers — arrangements it has yet to deliver on.

McDougal said she didn’t have a full grasp of the A.M.I. agreement before signing it.

“I knew that I couldn’t talk about any alleged affair with any married man, but I didn’t really understand the whole content of what I gave up,” she told Farrow.

A.M.I. said McDougal’s contract — amended after President Trump won the election — allowed her to “respond to legitimate press inquiries” about the affair, according to Farrow.

“Really the important ramifications of this story are the way in which it illustrates a system used by some of the most powerful men in this country, that includes leveraging tabloid media institutions to what employees of A.M.I. called ‘catch and kill’ stories,” Farrow told Morning Edition’s Rachel Martin.

Farrow adds, “that effort is ongoing, as of a few days ago to the benefit of a sitting president.”

As Farrow reported in the article, A.M.I. seemed to express greater interest in McDougal after stories about pornographic actress Stormy Daniels’ alleged affair with Trump began to swirl in recent weeks:

“In an e-mail on January 30th, A.M.I.’s general counsel, Cameron Stracher, talked about renewing her contract and putting her on a new magazine cover. The subject line of the e-mail read, ‘McDougal contract extension.’”

(On Wednesday, Trump’s personal attorney said he himself paid $130,000 to Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford.)

Farrow told NPR that he spoke to six former A.M.I. employees for the story, who told him, “that this system affords the person who catches the story, in this case the executives at American Media, leverage over the celebrity. And in this case, that leverage is with respect to the sitting president of the United States.”

Farrow paraphrased one former A.M.I. worker as saying, “They know where the bodies are buried. They can hold this story over the president.”

In a statement to The New Yorker, the company said, “The suggestion that AMI holds any influence over the President of the United States, while flattering, is laughable.”

Farrow’s article also revealed new details of the alleged affair, stemming from an eight-page handwritten document by McDougal.

The relationship was reportedly sparked after McDougal and Trump met at the Playboy Mansion in 2006, while he was married to Melania Trump and their son, Barron, was a baby.

Trump also reportedly used incendiary racial language during his interactions with McDougal.

In a statement to The New Yorker, a White House spokesperson said Trump denied the affair:

“This is an old story that is just more fake news. The President says he never had a relationship with McDougal.”

McDougal told Farrow she is a Republican and had hesitated to tell her story, “because she feared that other Trump supporters might accuse her of fabricating it, or might even harm her or her family. “

McDougal says she is also worried about A.M.I. retaliating against her for talking. But she said she was inspired to speak out now, in part, by the #MeToo movement.

“I just think I feel braver,” McDougal told Farrow. “Every girl who speaks,” she added, “is paving the way for another.”

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Strong 7.2 Mexico quake cuts power and damages homes; no deaths reported

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – A prolonged 7.2 magnitude quake that rocked Mexico on Friday left nearly a million homes and businesses without power in the capital and south but the only reported deaths came when a military helicopter crashed after surveying the aftermath.

At least 50 homes suffered damage in the southern state of Oaxaca, which, along with Mexico City, is still reeling from earthquakes that caused widespread damage in September.

The epicenter was about 90 miles (145 km) from Pacific coast surfer resort Puerto Escondido in the southern state of Oaxaca and had a depth of 15.3 miles (24.6 km), according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

At least two people died when a helicopter carrying Mexico’s interior minister and the governor of Oaxaca crashed while trying to land after a tour of damage from the earthquake, officials said. The senior officials survived.

The powerful, sustained shaking on Friday gave way to 225 aftershocks, the national seismology service said, and caused widespread panic.

In Mexico City, the seismic alarm sounded 72 seconds before tremors were felt, Mayor Miguel Angel Mancera said, giving residents time to flee to the streets.

Patricia Gutierrez, a 66-year-old English teacher, was taking a nap with her 11-month-old granddaughter, Juliet, when she heard the distinctive siren.

“She recognized the sound. When I opened my eyes, I saw her eyes in terror. Her eyes were wide, like plates. She didn’t say anything,” Gutierrez said of her granddaughter.

Gutierrez managed to leave her ground floor apartment before the quake began. “I left the phone and everything except for my shoes and the baby,” she said.

Authorities said no deaths directly linked to the quake had been reported nationally.

BRICKS AND RUBBLE

The Oaxacan town of Jamiltepec appeared to sustain the heaviest impact in the southern region, with 50 homes damaged along with a church and government building, the state’s civil protection agency said.

Patients were evacuated from a hospital there and from another in the nearby town of Putla Villa de Guerrero. On a local highway, a fire ignited when two high-tension electric cables struck each other.

In the town of Pinotepa Nacional close to the quake’s epicenter, a photo obtained from Oaxaca’s civil protection agency showed a single-story building where a portion of the brick facade had crumbled into the street. A hospital was also damaged, and a collapsed structure blocked a major highway.

About 100,000 people in Oaxaca had lost power, the state’s governor said.

National oil firm Pemex said its installations were in order, including its biggest refinery 240 miles (386 km) from the epicenter. A hotel operator in Puerto Escondido said his property had no damage.

Tremors were felt as far away as Guatemala to the south.

Images in the media appeared to show bricks and rubble fallen from buildings, and products tumbling off shelves in a supermarket.

In Mexico City, tall buildings swayed for more than a minute as seismic alarms sounded, with older structures in the chic Condesa neighborhood knocking into each other, and some cracks appearing in plaster and paintwork.

The Popocatepetl volcano south of the capital sent a kilometer-high column of ash into the sky, said Mexico’s disaster prevention agency.

Two young men standing by a building that collapsed in a Sept. 19 earthquake were still hugging minutes after the tremor. People crowded in the streets, one lady in her pajamas.

Trees, overhead cables and cars swayed, and a fire truck raced down the street.

Guadalupe Martinez, a 64-year-old retiree, said she was still shaking from shock. But the quake was a far cry from the tremors that struck Mexico in September, Martinez said.

“This time it was strong, but it did not jump up and down,” she said.

Reporting by Julia Love, Christine Murray, Michael O’Boyle, David Alire Garcia, Anthony Esposito and Stefanie Eschenbacher; Writing by Daina Beth Solomon and Frank Jack Daniel; Editing by Rosalba O’Brien, Lisa Shumaker and Tom Hogue

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