Ronan Farrow book: National Enquirer shredded documents related to Trump

Pulitzer Prize–winner Ronan Farrow reports in a new book that the top editor of The National Enquirer, a national tabloid publication that has strongly supported President Trump, directed staffers to shred documents related to the publication’s relationship with the president, according to CNN. 

Farrow writes that editor Dylan Howard ordered the shredding after The Wall Street Journal called about the Enquirer’s “catch and kill” relationship with the president in which it would buy the exclusive rights to a person’s story that would be embarrassing to Trump and then refuse to run those stories. 

Howard “appeared to be in a panic,” Farrow writes in his book, titled “Catch and Kill.”

{mosads}The Journal reported in November 2016, just days before the presidential election, that the Enquirer’s parent company, American Media Inc. (AMI), “agreed to pay $150,000 to a former Playboy centerfold model for her story of an affair a decade ago with the Republican presidential nominee, but then didn’t publish it.”

The $150,000 payment to Karen McDougal and another payment to adult-film star Stormy Daniels were at the heart of a campaign finance scandal that ensnared former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen. 

News accounts later emerged reporting that Howard and AMI chief David Pecker worked with Cohen and other Trump associates to suppress embarrassing stories about Trump. 

Farrow writes that “a Trump-related document from the safe, along with others in the Enquirer’s possession, had been shredded,” referring to speculation about a safe filled with damaging information in the AMI offices. Farrow notes the safe “was small and cheap and old.”

AMI dismissed Farrow’s reporting as “completely untrue.” 

“Mr. Farrow’s narrative is driven by unsubstantiated allegations from questionable sources and while these stories may be dramatic, they are completely untrue,” the company told CNN.

The network obtained an advance copy of the book, which is being released Tuesday.