CNN legal analyst: Yes, National Enquirer tried to extort Bezos

[Yosemito]

The analyst (Copeland) disagrees with another analyst (Marriotti) who says it's not extortion because neither money nor property were demanded.

Link to tweet

[RockRaven]

1. Didn't they demand he publish a specific article/statement in WaPo? That's a thing of value,

isn't it? If you had only to pay Bezos cash to get him to publish the same article, what would it cost? Not zero dollars, that's for sure.

The statute reads "money or other valuable thing"

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/873

Is Marriotti saying no one has ever been convicted of blackmail when the thing extorted was an action or service rather than cash or physical property? Really? If that were true I would be gob-smacked.

[Cha]

2. Sure sounds like extortion.

[Corgigal]

3. They wanted Bezo

to personally write something and to have the Post back off the investigation into the Saudis murder of one of their journalists.

They were blackmailing him for influence. Big business pays influencers when they uptick their message, so it financially should have value. That one attorney on MSNBC was wrong with it not having any monetary value. It does.

[stonecutter357]

4. K&R

[greyl]

5. Coercion in the First Degree at least? nt

[Gothmog]

6. This stunt may void AMI's non prosecution agreement

Link to tweet

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