Dear Lord, now there's a secret safe. Someone light the Geraldo Signal! From the AP:

The detail came as several media outlets reported on Thursday that federal prosecutors had granted immunity to National Enquirer chief David Pecker, potentially laying bare his efforts to protect his longtime friend Trump. Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen pleaded guilty this week to campaign finance violations alleging he, Trump and the tabloid were involved in buying the silence of a porn actress and a Playboy model who alleged affairs with Trump. Five people familiar with the National Enquirer's parent company, American Media Inc., who spoke to the AP on the condition of anonymity because they signed non-disclosure agreements, said the safe was a great source of power for Pecker, the company's CEO.

We are deep in the muck and mire right now anyway, so let's just dive in deeper and speculate.

Let us assume that what was in the powerful Pecker safe still exists somewhere. (If it doesn't, someone's going to jail for that, too.) Is there any reason to believe that the president* was the only one with material concerning him contained in it? What if there was stuff about, say, his primary opponents that could have been damaging if slipped sub rosa into the national dialogue? Suppose there was stuff about fellow Republicans that could have worked that same dark magic after he got elected?

Sandy Huffaker Getty Images

I mean, it would go a long way to explaining some of the rather stunning reversals that many experienced politicians have taken on the subject of El Caudillo Del Mar-a-Lago, as well as the almost universal surrender of Republicans in Congress. I mean, it isn't like The National Enquirer hasn't been hoovering up this kind of material for decades.

The Trump records were stored alongside similar documents pertaining to other celebrities' catch-and-kill deals, in which exclusive rights to people's stories were bought with no intention of publishing to keep them out of the news. By keeping celebrities' embarrassing secrets, the company was able to ingratiate itself with them and ask for favors in return.

But after The Wall Street Journal initially published the first details of Playboy model Karen McDougal's catch-and-kill deal shortly before the 2016 election, those assets became a liability. Fearful that the documents might be used against American Media, Pecker and the company's chief content officer, Dylan Howard, removed them from the safe in the weeks before Trump's inauguration, according to one person directly familiar with the events.

Do tell.

Jerry George, a longtime Enquirer reporter who left the publication in 2013, said the practice of catch and kill took root at the Enquirer under Pecker. Though George had no personal knowledge of Trump-specific catch and kills, he said that AMI generally paid hush money only if it believed it had something to gain. "It's 'I did this for you,' now what can you do for me," George said. "They always got something in return."

They could sell tickets to Pecker's interrogations. The folks at TMZ would sell a kidney to sit in. This is where we are in the world's oldest democracy now. Come on in. The slime is fine.

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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