Among them: the National Enquirer, the supermarket tabloid famous for trashing Hillary Clinton and spreading the lie that former president Barack Obama was not born in the United States. We also know that the Enquirer bought the catch-and-kill rights to a story from a former Trump Tower doorman who claims knowledge of another Trump affair with an ex-housekeeper in the 1980s. Granted, no one ever confused the National Enquirer with the Times of London, but it once had a reputation as a scrappy gossip sheet whose offerings — however lowbrow — were essentially factual. And to what extent does the National Enquirer deserve the concern of free-press advocates, who reasonably worry about a publisher — even an unsavory one — cooperating with a criminal investigation, and perhaps doing so under pressure? The National Enquirer, under David Pecker, did everything it could to put Donald Trump in the White House.

Source: Washington Post August 26, 2018 20:00 UTC