The owner of the National Enquirer has agreed to settle with the Federal Election Commission, and will pay a $187,500 fine for its role in giving actress Karen McDougal $150,000 for the rights to her story about an alleged sexual relationship with former President Donald Trump and keeping the news suppressed in order to help Trump during the 2016 election.
The FEC determined that by paying this money, American Media Inc., now known as A360 Media LLC, made an illegal corporate contribution to the Trump campaign, Politico reports. Attorneys for AMI and its former head, David Pecker, originally argued that they were acting as journalists when they entered the agreement with McDougal, but in 2018, both AMI and Pecker entered into a non-prosecution agreement with federal prosecutors and admitted they paid off McDougal as a way to influence the presidential election.
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