The Jeff Bezos affair was leaked by his mistress' brother, CNN confirms. A motive is still elusive.
The person who told the National Enquirer about the extramarital affair between Amazon chief Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez was Michael Sanchez, Lauren's brother, CNN said Wednesday night, citing two people with with knowledge of the matter. The Daily Beast first fingered Michael Sanchez as the leaker on Sunday, citing sources at American Media Inc., the Enquirer's publisher, and The Associated Press reported Tuesday that investigators working for Bezos had concluded that Sanchez gave the Enquirer intimate text messages between his sister and Bezos.
Sanchez declined to comment on the record for CNN, but he told the network Tuesday he'd "been told that the Amazon investigation determined that I was not involved in the leak of the d-ck pics, because I never had access to any of the d-ck pics." He previously told The Washington Post he played no role in leaking details about the relationship to the Enquirer, though he has acknowledged being friends with Dylan Howard, an AMI executive whose byline is on the Enquirer's Bezos affair story and who threatened Bezos in writing by describing intimate selfies the Enquirer held.
Sanchez's motive is a mystery, though. "Why would he blow up his sister's spot like that?" Don Lemon asked CNN reporter Chloe Melas on Wednesday night. "That's a really good question," she replied. "I just don't know. I can only imagine that the holidays will be super awkward for all of them together."
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Bezos hinted last week there might be a Saudi connection or a link to President Trump, and his investigator has alluded to "political motives," but no proof of either has emerged. On Wednesday night, The Daily Beast reported that Michael Sanchez "has a history of weaponizing his connections at AMI and the Enquirer on behalf of — and sometimes against — his former clients," and said "knowledgeable sources uniformly described [Sanchez] as vindictive and duplicitous." You can read examples at The Daily Beast.
