WASHINGTON — The ultimate supermarket tabloid would no longer be sold at supermarkets if a New Jersey congressman has his way.

The National Enquirer, the gossip-laden paper that’s a mainstay of checkout lines, “should be removed from all your store shelves," Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr., a Democrat, said in a letter to the the chief executives of five supermarket chains: Walmart, Kroger, Albertsons (which includes Acme), Publix, and Food Lion.

Pascrell asked the executives to stop selling the Enquirer, which published articles in support of Donald Trump in the 2016 election and paid to kill stories accusing the then-candidate of extramarital affairs. Federal prosecutors investigating Trump reportedly have granted immunity to publisher David Pecker.

In addition, Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos, the head of Amazon.com, has charged the Enquirer’s owner with “extortion and blackmail,” saying the paper said it would publish graphic photographs of him unless he said the tabloid’s reporting on his affair was not politically motivated. Trump has attacked Bezos over the Post’s reporting on his administration, while Pecker has been close to the president.

“The tabloid is a purveyor of fabricated news and possibly a vehicle in furtherance of illegal extortion, blackmail, and other crimes,” Pascrell wrote to the corporate executives. “In the interest of your millions of customers, this tabloid should be removed from all your store shelves."

Neither the Enquirer nor the five companies responded to requests for comment. Pascrell spokesman Mark Greenbaum said the lawmaker wanted to target one specific group of companies that sell the paper.

Pascrell said in his letter that the Enquirer successfully has been sued for libel on numerous occasions.

“This pattern of behavior makes it clear that Mr. Pecker uses the National Enquirer tabloid both in total support of the leader of a political party and in furtherance of scabrous and potentially illegal schemes,” Pascrell said. “Given this history, his flagship tabloid publication should not be given a platform in your businesses through which to poison Americans with lies."

The Enquirer through the years has broken political scandals. It published the first pictures of then-Democratic presidential candidate Gary Hart on the boat “Monkey Business” with Donna Rice, a woman who was not his wife; and broke the story that another Democratic presidential candidate, John Edwards, had a child with his mistress.

It also published stories on space aliens, celebrity gossip, on 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton having six months to live, and that the father of U.S. Sen Ted Cruz, R-Texas, had ties to Lee Harvey Oswald, who assassinated President John F. Kennedy.

I’d missed the lung cancer cover, the stroke story, the one about my mom @HillaryClinton’s hitman (possibly my missing alien sibling?!) and goodness, I think all of them actually. As always, thankful for my mom’s enduring health, grace, grit & goodness. https://t.co/1uCF21iPvt — Chelsea Clinton (@ChelseaClinton) August 23, 2018

Pascrell said most what is published is not what real inquiring minds want to know.

“Just as none of you would sell a contaminated food product, I know you would never dispense other agents of sickness to the tens of millions of customers who walk through your aisles every day,” he wrote. “Misinformation makes our society sick and the National Enquirer tabloid is a primary purveyor of it.”

The National Enquirer tabloid is a geyser of toxic misinformation and a possible vehicle of criminal activity. I’ve called on the leaders of our largest trusted supermarkets to pull it from their shelves. pic.twitter.com/hitf6gblIu — Bill Pascrell, Jr. (@BillPascrell) February 25, 2019

Jonathan D. Salant may be reached at jsalant@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JDSalant or on Facebook. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook.

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