The New Yorker has a bombshell story about Donald Trump and another alleged affair he had in 2006, the same year he allegedly cheated on his newlywed Melania. In fact, according to the detailed reporting of Ronan Farrow, he paid for former Playboy “Playmate of the Year” Karen McDougal to fly to Lake Tahoe to attend a celebrity golf tournament. If that sounds familiar, that is the very same weekend he is alleged to have started an affair with porn actress Stormy Daniels. Same weekend he offered another porn actress $10,000 to have sex with him. All while Melania Trump was home with baby Barron Trump.
According to Farrow’s reporting, McDougal’s story follows a clearly emerging pattern of secret hotel rendezvous and back channel hush money payoffs. Picking up after McDougal’s first alleged sexual encounter with the married Donald Trump in 2006, after they met at the Playboy mansion:
Afterward, McDougal wrote, she “went to see him every time he was in LA (which was a lot).” Trump, she said, always stayed in the same bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel and ordered the same meal—steak and mashed potatoes—and never drank. McDougal’s account is consistent with other descriptions of Trump’s behavior. Last month, In Touch Weekly published an interview conducted in 2011 with Stephanie Clifford in which she revealed that during a relationship with Trump she met him for dinner at a bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel, where Trump insisted they watch “Shark Week” on the Discovery Channel. Summer Zervos, a former contestant on “The Apprentice,” alleged that Trump assaulted her at a private dinner meeting, in December of 2007, at a bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel. Trump, Zervos has claimed, kissed her, groped her breast, and suggested that they lie down to “watch some telly-telly.” After Zervos rebuffed Trump’s advances, she said that he “began thrusting his genitals” against her. (Zervos recently sued Trump for defamation after he denied her account.) All three women say that they were escorted to a bungalow at the hotel by a Trump bodyguard, whom two of the women have identified as Keith Schiller. After Trump was elected, Schiller was appointed director of Oval Office Operations and deputy assistant to the President. Last September, John Kelly, acting as the new chief of staff, removed Schiller from the White House posts. (Schiller did not respond to a request for comment.)
Trump was extremely brazen, bringing McDougal to meet his family at events.
During Trump’s relationship with McDougal, she wrote, he introduced her to members of his family and took her to his private residences. At a January, 2007, launch party in Los Angeles for Trump’s now-defunct liquor brand, Trump Vodka, McDougal, who was photographed entering the event, recalled sitting at a table with Kim Kardashian, Trump, Donald Trump, Jr., and Trump, Jr.,’s wife, Vanessa, who was pregnant. At one point, Trump held a party for “The Apprentice” at the Playboy Mansion, and McDougal worked as a costumed Playboy bunny. “We took pics together, alone + with his family,” McDougal wrote. She recalled that Trump said he had asked his son Eric “who he thought was the most beautiful girl here + Eric pointed me. Mr. T said ‘He has great taste’ + we laughed!” Trump gave McDougal tours of Trump Tower and his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club. In Trump Tower, McDougal wrote, Trump pointed out Melania’s separate bedroom. He “said she liked her space,” McDougal wrote, “to read or be alone.”
Gee, I wonder why Melania Trump wants a second bedroom far, far away from Donald Trump! And why wasn’t McDougal’s story public knowledge before the election? Because Trump’s buddy David Pecker, the owner of the the National Enquirer bought McDougal’s story and then buried it for his ol’ pal.
On November 4, 2016, four days before the election, the Wall Street Journal reported that American Media, Inc., the publisher of the National Enquirer, had paid a hundred and fifty thousand dollars for exclusive rights to McDougal’s story, which it never ran. Purchasing a story in order to bury it is a practice that many in the tabloid industry call “catch and kill.” This is a favorite tactic of the C.E.O. and chairman of A.M.I., David Pecker, who describes the President as “a personal friend.” As part of the agreement, A.M.I. consented to publish a regular aging-and-fitness column by McDougal. After Trump won the Presidency, however, A.M.I.’s promises largely went unfulfilled, according to McDougal. Last month, the Journal reported that Trump’s personal lawyer had negotiated a separate agreement just before the election with an adult-film actress named Stephanie Clifford, whose screen name is Stormy Daniels, which barred her from discussing her own affair with Trump. Since then, A.M.I. has repeatedly approached McDougal about extending her contract.
To be clear, it is problematic the owner of a gossip publication has the humiliating details of an extramarital affair of the current occupant of the White House. Just one more way Donald Trump is extremely vulnerable to blackmail and/or coercion.
McDougal told Farrow she eventually ended the affair after nine months because she felt guilty and because he deeply offended her, her mother and a good friend:
On the night of the Miss Universe pageant McDougal attended, McDougal and a friend rode with Trump in his limousine and the friend mentioned a relationship she had had with an African-American man. According to multiple sources, Trump remarked that the friend liked “the big black dick” and began commenting on her attractiveness and breast size. The interactions angered the friend and deeply offended McDougal.
Excellent reporting from Ronan Farrow. See the handwritten journal and additional gag-inducing details at the New Yorker. As for Donald Trump, he is quick to deny the affair ever took place.
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