In 1824, the Duke of Wellington &#8212; the heroic victor at the Battle of Waterloo &#8212; received a blackmail letter from disreputable publisher Joseph Stockdale. Stockdale was threatening to publish the memoirs of a famous courtesan who claimed that Wellington had been one of her many lovers &#8212; which was likely true.
Wellington&#8217;s response is famous: &#8220;Publish and be damned!&#8221;
With those words, Wellington proved the truth of a famous quote that hadn&#8217;t even been written yet &#8212; the line from the movie Gone With the Wind: &#8220;With enough courage, you can do without a reputation.&#8221;
Jeff Bezos &#8212; according to Jeff Bezos anyway &#8212; summoned his own inner Wellington recently to respond to a blackmail threat from AMI, the owners of the pro-Trump rag National Enquirer. AMI threatened to publish emails and lurid photos Bezos sent, presumably during an extramarital affair. Bezos, of course, is not only the founder of Amazon and the richest man in the world. He&#8217;s also the owner of the anti-Trump rag the Washington Post. AMI allegedly wanted the Post to call off an investigation of AMI&#8217;s business dealings. Bezos published the embarrassing pics and emails himself and told AMI to pound sand.
Publish and be damned. Good for him. Better to suffer some humiliation than bow to fear and fall silent.
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One could have forgiven Bezos for caving in the current unforgiving climate. Just look at the goat rodeo in Virginia. Governor Ralph Northam &#8212; who should have been impeached for rationalizing infanticide in a recent radio interview &#8212; is instead under fire for a racist photo that appeared in his med school yearbook 30-odd years ago. The Attorney General there may have to quit because he went to a party in blackface in his student days.
Are such actions grounds for resignation? What do they prove except that, in their twenties, these men were insensitive jerks? Are they jerks now? Are they racist? Have they put their offices to racist use? Those questions don&#8217;t matter apparently. Virtually every Democrat ever born is calling on Northam to resign. Director Spike Lee, asked if people should be forgiven for such bad actions in their past, answered, &#8220;Hell no!&#8221;
It&#8217;s hard not to feel schadenfreude here. This is the world the Left has created for themselves. Political Correctness is a weapon designed to intimidate and silence conservatives, a way of preventing them from exposing the power-hunger and greed inherent in left-wing policies. To watch Democrats get hoist with this petard is delightful.
But maybe we should make this what those lefties would call a &#8220;teachable moment.&#8221; After all, the mess in Virginia is just further proof that the Bible is right as always when it tells us, &#8220;None is righteous, no, not one.&#8221;
No person is so good he can govern others without strict limits on his powers. No country is so good that its great achievements can&#8217;t be tarnished with a recitation of its sins. The best individual on earth has said something or done something that, if exposed, would ruin him. The best nation has committed atrocities. We all need forgiveness.
Individuals should be forgiven for foolish things they said and did that do not represent their present life. Nations should be forgiven sins of history that took place before anyone alive was born. These are basic tenets of our founding faith, and they should not be forgotten, even in this faithless age.
It is one thing to uncover unpunished crimes like murder or rape in a person&#8217;s past. But as for sins and stupidities: must we really live in constant fear of exposure to the unforgiving mob?
I say: Publish and be damned. With enough courage, you can live without a reputation.

KLAVAN: A Teachable Moment In Virginia

Democratic Party

Jeff Bezos

National Enquirer

Ralph Northam

Virginia

One day after news broke that David Pecker, CEO of the National Enquirer&#8217;s parent company and longtime friend of Donald Trump, had been granted immunity by federal investigators in the Michael Cohen probe, The Wall Street Journal reported that a similar deal has been granted to longtime CFO of the Trump Organization, Allen Weisselberg.
The Journal <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/allen-weisselberg-longtime-trump-organization-cfo-is-granted-immunity-by-federal-prosecutors-in-michael-cohen-investigation-1535121992">reported</a> Friday that according to &#8220;people familiar with the matter,&#8221; Weisselberg &#8220;was granted immunity by federal prosecutors for providing information about Michael Cohen,&#8221; who pleaded guilty on Tuesday to eight felonious counts, including two counts involving potential campaign finance violations in which he implicated Trump.
The development ramps up the legal and political pressure on the president over his &#8220;hush money&#8221; payments to a porn star and a former Playmate.
Weisselberg was <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/26/trump-org-cfo-called-to-grand-jury-to-testify-wsj.html">subpoenaed</a> in July after his name was mentioned in a tape secretly recorded by Cohen in September 2016 featuring him and his former client Trump discussing the possible purchase of the rights to former Playboy model Karen McDougal&#8217;s story about her alleged past affair with Trump.
On the tape released by Cohen&#8217;s team, Trump&#8217;s former &#8220;fixer&#8221; says he needs to create a company through which he could buy the rights to McDougal&#8217;s story from Pecker&#8217;s American Media Inc, parent company of the National Enquirer. &#8220;I&#8217;ve spoken to Allen Weisselberg about how to set the whole thing up,&#8221; said Cohen.&#8203;
The immunity deal with Weisselberg is similar to that given to Pecker, who provided investigators more details about how much Trump knew about Cohen&#8217;s admitted attempts to paying the two women.
Thus far, the Trump Organization and the White House have not offered any response to the story.
Just hours after reports of Pecker&#8217;s immunity deal, the Associated Press reported that his Enquirer tabloid allegedly locked potentially &#8220;damaging&#8221; stories about Trump in a <a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/34961/ap-national-enquirer-stored-damaging-trump-stories-james-barrett">&#8220;catch-and-kill&#8221; safe</a> to protect him ahead of the 2016 election.
Reported: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/34961/ap-national-enquirer-stored-damaging-trump-stories-james-barrett">AP: National Enquirer Stored Damaging Trump Stories In &#8216;Catch-And-Kill&#8217; Safe</a>

Longtime Trump Organization CFO Granted Immunity To Testify In Cohen Probe

Donald Trump

Michael Cohen

Stormy Daniels

Hillary Clinton can finally stop her exhausting search for the reason she lost the 2016 election despite having an overwhelming political advantage over her former reality TV star opponent: The National Enquirer&#8217;s special safe where they&#8217;d lock up damaging stories on Donald J. Trump, longtime pal of the paper&#8217;s chief, David Pecker.
Just after news broke that Pecker, chairman and CEO of the Enquirer&#8217;s parent company American Media Inc., had been <a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/34937/breaking-national-enquirer-ceo-david-pecker-ben-shapiro">granted immunity</a> by federal prosecutors so he could spill the beans on his buddy, the Associated Press published yet another &#8220;bombshell&#8221; in a week filled with bombshells: &#8220;<a href="https://apnews.com/143be3c52d4746af8546ca6772754407/AP:-National-Enquirer's-safe-held-damaging-Trump-stories">National Enquirer hid damaging Trump stories in a safe</a>.&#8221;
According to &#8220;people familiar with the arrangement ,&#8221; the tabloid kept any stories that could&#8217;ve potentially undermined candidate Trump &#8212; like his &#8220;hush money&#8221; pay-offs to a former Playmate and a touring porn star &#8212; locked in a special safe, along with stories involving other celebrities&#8217; &#8220;catch-and-kill deals.&#8221; AP reports:
<blockquote>
Five people familiar with the National Enquirer&#8217;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&#8217;s CEO.
The Trump records were stored alongside similar documents pertaining to other celebrities&#8217; catch-and-kill deals, in which exclusive rights to people&#8217;s stories were bought with no intention of publishing to keep them out of the news. By keeping celebrities&#8217; embarrassing secrets, the company was able to ingratiate itself with them and ask for favors in return.
</blockquote>
One unnamed source told AP that Pecker and chief content officer Dylan Howard removed the Trump stories weeks before Trump&#8217;s inauguration, fearing they&#8217;d become a &#8220;liability&#8221; after details about the $150,000 payment to former Playmate Karen McDougal. Where the stories are now is &#8220;unclear,&#8221; AP notes.
According to one former Enquirer reporter, Jerry George, the &#8220;catch-and-kill&#8221; approach &#8220;took root&#8221; at the Enquirer under Pecker, AP notes. The tabloid would sometimes pay the hush money, he explained, in order to get something in return from the celebrity. So far, no response from American Media on AP&#8217;s claims.
The claims about the safe follow reports by The Wall Street Journal and Vanity Fair about Pecker&#8217;s <a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/34937/breaking-national-enquirer-ceo-david-pecker-ben-shapiro">immunity deal</a>. Court documents for the case against Trump&#8217;s former personal lawyer Michael Cohen, who &#8220;flipped&#8221; on him Tuesday, say that Pecker had helped Trump handle negative stories about women by &#8220;assisting the campaign in identifying such stories so they could be purchased and their publication avoided.&#8221;
Pecker reportedly shared information with federal prosecutors about the payments Cohen says he made at Trump&#8217;s direction to McDougal and Stormy Daniels.
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/34937/breaking-national-enquirer-ceo-david-pecker-ben-shapiro">SHAPIRO: National Enquirer CEO David Pecker Granted Immunity By Feds To Flip On Trump</a>

AP: National Enquirer Stored Damaging Trump Stories In ‘Catch-And-Kill’ Safe

Associated Press

In May, exercise guru Richard Simmons, who has been the subject of various rumor-filled reports in recent years, sued the National Enquirer and Radar Online for falsely reporting that he was transitioning to become a trans woman. The lawsuit didn&#8217;t go as the &#8220;Sweatin&#8217; to the Oldies&#8221; star planned. He&#8217;s now being ordered to pay <a href="http://www.nbcconnecticut.com/entertainment/entertainment-news/Simmons-Must-Pay-Media-Outlets-130K-After-Transgender-Suit-476607403.html">$130,000 </a>to the defendants.
&#8220;Richard Simmons: He&#8217;s Now a Woman,&#8221; declared the National Enquirer in June 2016; Radar Online ran a similar article. In response, Simmons sued the outlets and their publisher American Media. In a hearing in August, Simmons&#8217; attorneys accused National Enquirer of deliberately trying to &#8220;humiliate&#8221; Simmons.
&#8220;The object of the National Enquirer was to do everything they could to humiliate this person,&#8221; <a href="http://variety.com/2017/biz/news/richard-simmons-transgender-lawsuit-defamation-national-enquirer-1202542953/">argued</a> Nevile Johnson, one of Simmons&#8217; attorneys. &#8220;They made it up entirely out of whole cloth. I submit that when you make something up intentionally &#8230; and put it on the cover, there&#8217;s an inference you can make that somebody&#8217;s reputation is going to be harmed.&#8221;
But Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Gregory Keosian sided with the two media outlets and dismissed the 69-year-old celebrity&#8217;s case, ruling in September that alleging that someone is transgender is not necessarily defamatory because it does not inherently expose a person to &#8220;hatred, contempt, ridicule or obloquy,&#8221; as <a href="http://variety.com/2017/biz/news/richard-simmons-transgender-lawsuit-defamation-national-enquirer-1202542953/">Variety</a> reported at the time. &#8220;While, as a practical matter, the characteristic may be held in contempt by a portion of the population, the court will not validate those prejudices by legally recognizing them,&#8221; he ruled.
American Media filed a motion seeking repayment for legal fees for the dismissed case in January. On Friday, Keosian again sided with the publisher, ordering Simmons to pay nearly <a href="https://www.nbcconnecticut.com/entertainment/entertainment-news/Simmons-Must-Pay-Media-Outlets-130K-After-Transgender-Suit-476607403.html">$130,000</a> to cover some of the defendants&#8217; legal fees for his failed lawsuit. While the outcome was surely welcomed by the publisher, the amount is still about $90,000 less than they&#8217;d requested.&#8203;
In his original complaint, Simmons underscored that he was not trying to insult the transgender community by declaring the false claim to be an attempt to humiliate him.

Richard Simmons’ Transgender Allegation Lawsuit Ends Up Backfiring

Transgender

A top editor with the National Enquirer, and several of its sister properties, including Us Weekly and RadarOnline, went from being a gossip purveyor to part of the story this week, as accusations surfaced that he made sexually suggestive comments to female colleagues and forced reporters to watch pornographic movies during the workday.
Dylan Howard serves as the editor-in- chief of the National Enquirer and &#8220;oversees newsrooms&#8221; at both Us Weekly and Radar. It was in the latter capacity that he harassed his female colleagues,<a href="https://www.spin.com/2017/12/dylan-howard-national-enquirer-us-weekly-top-editor-sexual-harassment/"> according to SPIN magazine</a>. Howard allegedly &#8220;made sexually inappropriate comments to staff, commented on a female employee’s sex life, and forced staff members to watch pornographic materials of no reported news value.&#8221;
The Enquirer has, apparently, known about Howard&#8217;s behavior for some time — they commissioned an investigation into Howard&#8217;s on-campus activities back in 2012 — but weren&#8217;t able to punish Howard before he left to become the editor of CeleBuzz.com. He returned a year later, however, with a promotion and a pay raise, and no one even mentioned the previous allegations, the Associated Press contends.
Weirder still, Howard appears in several emails to Harvey Weinstein, released as part of a New Yorker investigation into the Hollywood media mogul, where he appears to collaborate with Weinstein to destroy the reputations and careers of actresses who claimed Weinstein sexually abused them.
Employees who spoke to AP said Howard liked to refer to himself as &#8220;Dildo&#8221; in the newsroom, and, on occasion, suggested that his female reporters sleep with sources to get information — something that&#8217;s not just a violation of decorum, but a severe ethical violation as well.
The women said they reported the comments to HR, but the outside lawyer who conducted the 2012 investigation told AP that the company did not think any of the allegations &#8220;rose to the level of harassment that would require termination.”
Howard says the accusations are &#8220;baseless.&#8221;

National Enquirer, Us Weekly Editor Accused Of Sexual Harassment

Sexual Misconduct

On Wednesday, the National Enquirer officially apologized to Judge Judy and her daughter Nicole Sheindlin for publishing a series of false stories about the two. The notoriously unreliable celebrity tabloid declared that the famous reality TV star was suffering from Alzheimer&#8217;s, depression and brain disease and had cheated on her husband. As for her daughter, well, she was supposedly facing jail time.
In its apology, the Enquirer admitted that &#8220;none of these statements are true, and we unequivocally retract them.&#8221; Here is the full text of the Enquirer&#8216;s <a href="http://www.nationalenquirer.com/celebrity/apology-regarding-judge-judy-nicole-sheindlin/">apology</a> published on Wednesday:
<blockquote>
The National ENQUIRER and sister publication The National Examiner recently published articles which stated that Judge Judy Sheindlin suffered from &#8220;brain disease,&#8221; was &#8220;fighting&#8221; both Alzheimer&#8217;s and depression, and is &#8220;hiding a heartbreaking medical crisis.&#8221;
We also published articles which stated that Judge Judy cheated on her husband, and that her daughter Nicole Sheindlin faced jail time for refusing to serve on a jury.
None of these statements are true, and we unequivocally retract them.
The National ENQUIRER, The National Examiner and American Media Inc. sincerely apologize to Judge Judy. The National ENQUIRER, The National Examiner and American Media Inc. also sincerely apologize to Nicole, who is a respected attorney and is the CEO of Her Honor Mentoring.
</blockquote>
This is certainly not the first time the tabloid has issued a retraction. As <a href="http://www.gossipcop.com/national-enquirer-apologizes-judge-judy-false-stories-alzheimers-statement/">GossipCop</a> notes, the outlet likewise issued full retractions and apologies recently to Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson for phony stories about their supposed divorce and Hanks&#8217; &#8220;affairs&#8221; with Meg Ryan and Felicity Jones after the couple&#8217;s attorney, Marty Singer, got involved. <a href="http://www.thewrap.com/tom-hanks-rita-wilson-win-retractions-from-national-enquirer-star-over-false-divorce-reports/">The Wrap </a>provides excerpts of the retractions:
<blockquote>
&#8220;In the October 10, 2016 issue of The National Enquirer, we did not intend to report that Tom Hanks was having any kind of an inappropriate relationship with Meg Ryan, or that he and Rita Wilson were divorcing,&#8221; the Enquirer stated. &#8220;We apologize for and regret any implication to the contrary.&#8221;
&#8220;In the October 3, 2016 issue of Star magazine, we did not intend to report that Tom Hanks was having any kind of an inappropriate relationship with Felicity Jones, or that he and Rita Wilson were divorcing,&#8221; Star&#8217;s own apology read. &#8220;We apologize for and regret any implication to the contrary.&#8221;
</blockquote>
But of course the real scandal from the Left&#8217;s perspective is not that the National Enquirer has a habit of making reckless claims about celebrities, but that it has &#8220;<a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/07/03/the-national-enquirers-fervor-for-trump">real fervor for Trump</a>.&#8221;

National Enquirer To Judge Judy And Her Daughter: Sorry About All Those Fake Stories

Look, we know it&#8217;s the National Enquirer, which once ran the headline, &#8220;Hillary Clinton Adopts Alien Baby&#8221; (insert your own Chelsea joke here).
But the grocery store tabloid has gotten a few big stories right, like former Sen. John Edwards&#8217; secret love child; Jesse Jackson&#8217;s illegitimate daughter; Gary Hart&#8217;s affair with Donna Rice (who can forget that photo of Rice sitting in the former senator&#8217;s lap on Hart&#8217;s yacht, aptly named &#8220;Monkey Business&#8221;).
So, with a few grains of salt, consider the Enquirer&#8217;s latest &#8220;BOMBSHELL EXCLUSIVE! Hillary Clinton: How She Framed Donald Trump&#8217;s Family.&#8221;
&#8220;Hillary Clinton and a firm with ties to the Democratic party setup President Donald Trump and his family in an attempt to destroy the billionaire businessman and politician according to the National Enquirer,&#8221; writes the <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4711832/Evil-Hillary-Clinton-framed-Trump-family-Russia.html?login#readerCommentsCommand-message-field">Daily Mail</a>.
<blockquote>
The tabloid magazine, which has made no secret of its pro-Trump agenda, came to this conclusion after what they describe as an &#8216;exhaustive investigation&#8217; into the matter.
These attempts by &#8216;evil&#8217; Hillary to bring down her rival included luring Donald Jr. into meeting with shadowy Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskyaya claims the tabloid.
And the firm in the middle of all this is Fusion GPS, according to the tabloid, the same group that allegedly compiled Christopher Steele&#8217;s scandalous dossier of claims about President Trump that was published in January.
Fusion GPS previously denied these claims, stating: &#8216;Fusion GPS learned about this meeting from news reports and had no prior knowledge of it. Any claim that Fusion GPS arranged or facilitated this meeting in any way is absolutely false.&#8217; 
&#8216;To put it in spy terms it was like a honey trap, Only they weren&#8217;t selling sex to Donald Jr. They were selling fictitious dirt of Hillary,&#8217; said former CIA officer Larry C. Johnson.
&#8216;And once they bit on the meeting, they had him right where they wanted him!&#8217; 
As for why this firm, Fusion GPS, would want to aid in this setup, a congressional source told the tabloid: &#8216;These guys had a vested personal interest and ideological interest in smearing Trump and boosting Hillary&#8217;s chances of winning the White House.&#8217; 
</blockquote>
The Enquirer says the Democratic Party hired Fusion GPS in 2012 &#8220;to smear presidential candidate Mitt Romney. Two years later, a Republican donor also hired them, but to smear Trump.&#8221;

National Enquirer: Hillary Clinton Framed The Trumps On Russia

Donald Trump Jr.

Hillary Clinton

On MSNBC on Friday morning, Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski alleged that the Trump administration asked them to tone down their coverage of President Trump &#8211; and in return, offered to kill a story in the National Enquirer set to run on them. Scarborough teased the story in a piece in The Washington Post on Friday morning:
<blockquote>
This year, top White House staff members warned that the National Enquirer was planning to publish a negative article about us unless we begged the president to have the story spiked. We ignored their desperate pleas.
</blockquote>
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
This is a chilling story. <a href="https://t.co/HYJgBnajOy">https://t.co/HYJgBnajOy</a> via <a href="https://twitter.com/Morning_Joe">@Morning_Joe</a> <a href="https://t.co/6UCEHzfOET">https://t.co/6UCEHzfOET</a>
&#8212; Bradd Jaffy (@BraddJaffy) <a href="https://twitter.com/BraddJaffy/status/880768543880429568">June 30, 2017</a></blockquote>
</div>
Scarborough told the more complete version of the story on the air:
<blockquote>
I think we have to talk about it now because it explains the relationship and his really strange obsession with this show, and in particular, his really disturbing obsession with Mika. We got a call that hey, the National Enquirer is going to run a negative story against you guys, and Donald, the President is friends with the guy who runs the National Enquirer. And they said, &#8220;If you call the president up and apologize for your coverage, then he will pick up the phone and basically spike this story.&#8221; I will just say I had three people at the very top of the administration calling me. The response was like, &#8220;Are you kidding me? I don&#8217;t know what they have. Run a story? I&#8217;m not going to do it.&#8221; The calls kept coming and kept coming, and they were like, &#8220;Call, you need to call, please call, come on Joe, please just pick up the phone and call him.&#8221;
</blockquote>
Brzezinski then said that the National Enquirer called her children and close friends and was attempting to target her ex-husband. She said:
<blockquote>
These calls persisted for quite some time, and then Joe had the conversations that he had with the White House, where they said, &#8220;Oh, this could go away.&#8221;
</blockquote>
Scarborough stated that there were people from the National Enquirer staking out Mika&#8217;s house; soon after, Scarborough alleged, the White House began calling.
This isn&#8217;t implausible, given Trump&#8217;s relationship with the National Enquirer &#8211; he said last year they should win a Pulitzer, and while denying any sort of editorial influence, also lent credibility to the Enquirer&#8217;s ridiculous hit pieces on Senator Ted Cruz&#8217;s father, which suggested that Rafael Cruz was involved with the JFK assassination.
So, here&#8217;s the question.
Why the hell didn&#8217;t Mika and Joe reveal this situation when it happened? It would seem rather newsworthy that the White House itself was threatening to use a media outlet as a propaganda tool as a club in order to influence news coverage. Why didn&#8217;t Joe and Mika say anything? We&#8217;ve been hearing for months that Trump threatens press freedom. This is an open threat against press freedom.
There are a couple of answers: maybe Scarborough and Brzezinski wanted to maintain a relationship with the White House; perhaps they thought that if they swept all of this under the rug, all would be well. But it does demonstrate that the media&#8217;s talk about wanting to hold Trump accountable is nonsense. It&#8217;s a ratings game. And it will remain a ratings game.

WATCH: MSNBC’s Joe and Mika Accuse Trump Of Using ‘National Enquirer’ To Blackmail Them Into Favorable Coverage

Joe Scarborough

Mika Brzezinski

Fitness guru Richard Simmons is suing gossip magazines The National Enquirer and Radar Online and media publisher American Media, Inc for &#8220;cruel and malicious&#8221; reporting since June of 2016 suggesting Simmons was undergoing a sex change. Such allegedly false <a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/richard-simmons-sues-national-enquirer-cruel-sex-change-story-999863">reports </a>included the claims that the fitness star had &#8220;&#8216;shocking sex surgery,&#8217; breast implants, hormone treatments and consultations on medical castration.&#8221;
In the libel complaint filed Monday in Los Angeles, Simmons argues that he has a &#8220;a legal right to insist that he not be portrayed as someone he is not.&#8221; It was also argued that The National Enquirer used a sole source they knew to be non-credible to malign him.
The complaint &#8220;paints the tabloids&#8217; conduct as &#8216;particularly egregious,&#8217; a cynical calculation that Simmons wouldn&#8217;t sue because he wouldn&#8217;t want to appear as frowning upon the act of transitioning from one gender to another,&#8221; <a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/richard-simmons-sues-national-enquirer-cruel-sex-change-story-999863">reports</a> The Hollywood Reporter. 
&#8220;National Enquirer and Radar Online have miscalculated,&#8221; says the complaint. &#8220;The National Enquirer and Radar Online have cheaply and crassly commercialized and sensationalized an issue that ought to be treated with respect and sensitivity. Principles of freedom of speech and press may protect their prerogative to mock and degrade the LGBTQ community. But freedom to speak is not freedom to defame. Mr. Simmons, like every person in this nation, has a legal right to insist that he not be portrayed as someone he is not. Even the most ardent supporter of sexual autonomy and LGBTQ rights is entitled to be portrayed in a manner that is truthful.&#8221;
Simmons&#8217; attorney, Neville Johnson, added that the magazines&#8217; actions denied Simmons his right &#8220;to be treated with decency and dignity, free from the deliberate propagation of falsehoods that have no motivation other than exploitation.&#8221;
&#8220;It is to vindicate that right, and the rights of all persons to be portrayed with dignity and honesty with regard to their sexual identity, that Mr. Simmons files this lawsuit,&#8221; said Johnson.
Additionally, Simmons&#8217; complaint claims the source for such malicious reporting was a blackmailed stalker who was known to be discredited.
&#8220;Starting from around May 2015, Mauro Oliveira, an individual who has blackmailed, extorted and stalked Mr. Simmons for several years with the intention of destroying the career and reputation of Mr. Simmons, contacted several press outlets, including the National Enquirer and Radar, and offered information on Mr. Simmons&#8217; disappearance in exchange for a fee,&#8221; says the compliant.
Per the complaint, Oliveira once claimed Simmons&#8217; absence from the spotlight was due to his witchcraft-engaging housekeeper holding him hostage; in another instance, she claimed it was the secret sex change.
&#8220;All of these assertions were untrue, and were merely attempts by Mr. Oliveira to gain a profit in exchange for providing a false narrative about Mr. Simmons&#8217; leave of absence,&#8221; the complaint continues. &#8220;While pitching around these ideas, Mr. Oliveira was simultaneously blackmailing Mr. Simmons, sending him emails and threatening to destroy his reputation with damaging press coverage unless Mr. Simmons paid Mr. Oliveira to stop.&#8221;
Still, this individual was the sole source to some reports, alleges the suit.
&#8220;The cover of the article, 100% entirely dedicated to the false story about Mr. Simmons&#8217; transition, included an old image of Mr. Simmons from 2013 (before his disappearance), dressed in costume as a female, which he has done openly over the years consistent with his well-known and longstanding burlesque-style entertainment persona,&#8221; says the complaint of a June 8 report from The National Enquirer. &#8220;Accompanying the image of the 2013 photo of Mr. Simmons was a large bold headline, taking up half of the cover page, proclaiming &#8216;Richard Simmons: He&#8217;s Now a Woman!'&#8221;
&#8220;Radar is said to have followed this up with five articles itself recycling information,&#8221; noted The Hollywood Reporter. 
Since Simmons&#8217; suit could be construed as categorizing transgenderism as shameful, it may face issues in court. The Hollywood Reporter explains:
<blockquote>The lawsuit raises provocative issues. Past courts have grappled with the question of whether being called gay is actually a stain on one&#8217;s reputation. Other courts have dealt with public accusations of cosmetic surgery in the reputational context. Results have been mixed. For instance, Tom Cruise once won a default judgment against a porn actor who claimed an affair, while a New York appeals court in 2012 ruled that defamation suits premised on one&#8217;s sexuality are &#8220;based on the flawed premise that it is shameful and disgraceful to be described as lesbian, gay or bisexual.&#8221;</blockquote>
But, as noted by the publication, Simmons has filed &#8220;the first-ever defamation lawsuit over published reports of a sex change and framing it as a stand for dignity and the right to have a gender identity.&#8221; Such framing of the suit will likely help his case.
&#8220;Simmons is now bringing four counts of libel as well as an invasion of privacy-false light charge. He&#8217;s asking that defendants be enjoined and restrained from continuing to disseminate articles about how Simmons underwent a sex change plus demanding an unspecified amount of compensatory and punitive damages. He also wants an apology and retraction,&#8221; notes The Hollywood Reporter. 
American Media, Inc. is standing by their reporting.
&#8220;While we have not seen Mr. Simmons’ complaint, we stand by our reporting about him, all of which was based on solid sourcing, photos and videos. Should he choose to proceed with his lawsuit, we will defend it vigorously, and we look forward to the public vindication of our reports,&#8221; said an American Media, Inc. spokesperson.

Richard Simmons Just Sued National Enquirer For Saying He Was Having A Sex Change

Gender

Hollywood

The <a href="http://www.nationalenquirer.com/politics/hillary-clinton-lesbian-tryst-claims-bill-affair-allegations-fixer-interview/">National Enquirer</a> dropped a bombshell rumor on Hillary Clinton: they claimed to have found somebody who apparently covered up the Clintons&#8217; sexual affairs.
The article, written as a firsthand account from someone identified as a &#8220;Clinton bagman,&#8221; claims he was known as &#8220;a fixer&#8221; for Hollywood stars by preventing humiliating stories of them from reaching the media. His prestige as &#8220;a fixer&#8221; led him to being paid $4,000 a month to prevent stories that discussed &#8220;Bill Clinton&#8217;s many sexual dalliances and an alleged ongoing affair of Hillary Clinton with a male member of her law firm, Vince Foster, as well as a female mover-and-shaker in Hollywood&#8221; from being reported.
The bagman claims that he became swamped with covering up the Clinton affairs, which included a recording of a prostitute with Bill Clinton at a 1994 bachelor party for his brother, Roger Clinton. The bagman alleges that he prevented the Enquirer from getting their hands on the recording by giving them &#8220;exclusive access&#8221; to Roger Clinton&#8217;s wedding, and that at the reception, Hillary Clinton tracked down the Enquirer reporter and made a gesture that implied a threat.
&#8220;Her expression fierce, voice tight, she took and tightly held the reporter&#8217;s hand and demanded, &#8216;Are we done now?'&#8221; the bagman recalls. &#8220;The reporter replied, &#8216;Madam First Lady, with this incident, yes.'&#8221;
There were apparently &#8220;an endless string of sexual stories&#8221; that the bagman worked to cover up for &#8220;the Clintons&#8217; open, polyamorous marriage.&#8221;
&#8220;I have kept these secrets for a quarter-century because Bill Clinton had become an elder statesman with heart trouble and Hillary Clinton seemed to be focused, at last, on the business of doing her job &#8212; for better or for worse,&#8221; the bagman wrote. &#8220;I am coming forward now because of the endless attention the alleged indiscretions of Donald Trump have received. Nothing I have heard comes close to the sexual and moral corruption of the Clintons &#8212; many of which have yet to be revealed.&#8221;
Naturally, the story should be taken with a grain of salt since it&#8217;s published in the National Enquirer. While the publication has gotten a few stories right&#8211;most notably the John Edwards affair&#8211;most of their stories have been outlandish and uncorroborated by evidence. As the <a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/4687/here-are-politicians-accused-national-enquirer-aaron-bandler">Daily Wire has reported</a>, these politicians dubbed by the Enquirer has having affairs included President Barack Obama, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), none of which were taken seriously.
Additionally, it&#8217;s worth noting that Trump seems to have a bromance with National Enquirer CEO David Pecker; the publication endorsed Trump&#8217;s candidacy for president, prompting the hashtag <a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/4420/trumplovespecker-trending-twitter-heres-why-aaron-bandler">#TrumpLovesPecker</a> to stream across Twitter for a period of time at the height of the garbage Enquirer story alleging that Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) engaged in numerous sexual affairs&#8211;none of which were ever substantiated.
Therefore, while it is believable that there are numerous Clinton affairs that are unknown to the public, the Enquirer has proven that they&#8217;re not a reliable source and people should be skeptical of stories like their bagman story unless other news outlets can confirm it.

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