Ronan Farrow says the National Enquirer tried to blackmail him, too

Hours after Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos accused the National Enquirer's parent company, AMI, of trying to blackmail him, journalist Ronan Farrow said he received similar threats from AMI while reporting on the relationship between the Enquirer and President Trump.

Farrow tweeted: "I and at least one other prominent journalist involved in breaking stories about the National Enquirer's arrangement with Trump fielded similar 'stop digging or we'll ruin you' blackmail efforts from AMI. (I did not engage as I don't cut deals with subjects of ongoing reporting.)" Bezos revealed on Thursday that after the Enquirer published a story exposing his relationship with Lauren Sanchez, he hired investigators to determine how the tabloid obtained their text messages. He was then approached by AMI, and told embarrassing photos and texts would be released if he did not halt the investigation.

AMI is led by David Pecker, one of Trump's longtime friends. Last year, Farrow wrote a story for The New Yorker about the Enquirer's "catch and kill" practice; in order to keep dirt on Trump under wraps during the 2016 election, the tabloid paid people for their stories about him, and then never published anything.

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Ted Bridis, a former editor for The Associated Press, responded to Farrow's tweet, sharing that AP was "warned explicitly by insiders that AMI had hired private investigators to dig into backgrounds of @AP journalists looking into the tabloid's efforts on behalf of Trump. Never saw evidence of this either way, and it didn't stop our reporting."