The feud between Jeff Bezos and the National Enquirer took another stunning turn over the weekend when a personal investigator for the Amazon.com Inc chief executive accused Saudi Arabia of accessing Bezos’ phone data before the tabloid exposed his extramarital affair.
Gavin de Becker, a security consultant for Bezos, made his accusations in a 2000-plus-word post in the Daily Beast, which the news site labeled as “opinion.”
The investigator gave no direct evidence to reinforce his allegations, which furthered a suggestion made by Bezos in February that the tabloid’s interest in his personal life could be linked to the killing of Saudi Arabian journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
National Enquirer parent American Media Inc (AMI) has offered an explanation with far less political intrigue: It learned of Bezos’ affair from his lover’s brother.
De Becker said Bezos is a target of the Saudi Arabian government because Bezos owns the Washington Post, which has written extensively about Khashoggi’s murder at a Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul.
The investigation “concluded with high confidence that the Saudis had access to Bezos’ phone, and gained private information,” De Becker said in the column.
It is unclear to what degree AMI was aware of the details, he wrote.
Bezos has accused the publisher of the National Enquirer of trying to blackmail him.
The investigation “studied the well-documented and close relationship” between Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman and AMI chairman David Pecker, De Becker said.
De Becker’s post makes no mention as to whether any sensitive information about Amazon was compromised. The company has been expanding in the Middle East and purchased e-commerce site Souq.com in 2017.
Amazon representatives did not respond to requests for comment.
In a blog post on Feb. 7, Bezos alleged that AMI threatened to publish embarrassing photos of himself and a woman who was not his wife. It was the Enquirer that, on its front page in January, said Bezos had been “caught cheating on his wife of 25 years with the spouse of a Hollywood mogul!” — a former TV anchor named Lauren Sanchez.
AMI said in a statement that Sanchez’s brother was its only source for the report.
“Despite the false and unsubstantiated claims of Mr. de Becker, American Media has, and continues to, refute the unsubstantiated claims that the materials for our report were acquired with the help of anyone other than the single source who first brought them to us,” it said.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
‘DELUSIONAL’: Targeting the families of Hamas’ leaders would not push the group to change its position or to give up its demands for Palestinians, Ismail Haniyeh said Israeli aircraft on Wednesday killed three sons of Hamas’ top political leader in the Gaza Strip, striking high-stakes targets at a time when Israel is holding delicate ceasefire negotiations with the militant group. Hamas said four of the leader’s grandchildren were also killed. Ismail Haniyeh’s sons are among the highest-profile figures to be killed in the war so far. Israel said they were Hamas operatives, and Haniyeh accused Israel of acting in “the spirit of revenge and murder.” The deaths threatened to strain the internationally mediated ceasefire talks, which appeared to gain steam in recent days even as the sides remain far
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of