[Warning: Potentially Triggering Content]
Well, isn’t that interesting? Just a few short weeks ago Donald Trump became a convicted felon. And just last week a hell of a lot of folks finally learned he was accused of raping a 13-year-old girl. As it turns out, these two scandals are connected. Read on to find out how…
Katie Johnson’s Claims
OK, let’s rewind. For anyone who still hasn’t seen, back in 2016 a woman known by the alias Katie Johnson came forward claiming she was raped in 1994 by Trump and his pal Jeffrey Epstein at Epstein’s NYC residence. She was only 13 at the time, but as we know that’s hardly a barrier for Epstein. Katie claimed in a legal filing that Trump went first, tying her to a bed and deflowering her as she begged him to stop. She says he refused to wear a condom, too — and told her to “get a f**king abortion” if she got pregnant.
The thing is, in 2016 the American people didn’t know who the heck Jeffrey Epstein was. So despite the horror of a presidential candidate being accused of raping a child, the story barely got any traction. Hell, maybe no one wanted to believe it. At the time the political landscape wasn’t as f**ked as it is now, so maybe most would have found it all too salacious to be real. The stuff of bad fiction.
Related: Trump’s Response To Epstein Question Is SO Uncomfortable!
But now we’re living in a world where we KNOW Epstein ran a teen sex trafficking ring for powerful men. None of those men have faced any consequences thanks in part to Epstein’s untimely “suicide.” But he didn’t traffic to no one. They’re out there, and we all know it. At this point Katie’s accusations don’t seem so crazy. You hear about a woman saying she was raped by Jeffrey Epstein at 13 years old, you think, of course that happened. That’s what that man did.
But like we said, at the time it just didn’t become a huge story. (Maybe Hillary Clinton didn’t push it in the election because like Trump, her husband Bill was also all over Epstein’s flight logs, you know?)
Ultimately Katie Johnson dropped her lawsuit, citing fear for her life after Trump and Epstein both allegedly threatened to kill her and her family if she ever told what they’d done. And poof, the whole thing just went away.
But for a couple months there, Trump did have this thing to contend with, these allegations that at any minute could become a bigger story than the Access Hollywood tape — potentially wrecking his campaign. The damn race was certainly close enough in the end.
So what was the plan for Katie Johnson before she decided to drop her lawsuit and go into hiding?
Catch And Kill
Ronan Farrow‘s investigation may have led him to the answer. It turns out in his 2019 book Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators, the respected journalist did mention the Katie lawsuit. He claimed Trump’s pal David Pecker, CEO of American Media Inc. (AMI), which published The National Enquirer at the time, tried to help Trump crush the story.
He wrote about how Trump’s infamous fixer, Michael Cohen, got assurances from Enquirer‘s editor at the time, Dylan Howard, “that they would track down the woman with the rape allegation and see what they could do about her.”
If all that sounds familiar, it’s the practice the book was about — catch and kill is the name of the strategy in which a publication will buy exclusive rights to a story, only to BURY IT. They allegedly did this with Karen McDougal, paying her $150k for her story about having an affair with Trump for nine months in 2006-2007, while he was married to Melania Trump.
Karen confirmed to taking the payment in a bombshell 2018 interview about the affair. A settlement with AMI the next month invalidated the non-disclosure agreement she’d signed as part of the catch and kill. AMI eventually admitted they’d made the payment.
Cohen, who was facing criminal prosecution, released a tape of a conversation in which Trump can be heard confirming whether a payment of “one-fifty” was required for “our friend David.” As in David Pecker. Pecker actually confirmed this payment years later, too, in Trump’s trial. He said they didn’t do the catch-and-kill with Stormy Daniels — though not for lack of trying on Trump’s part. Pecker testified Cohen tried to get him to more than once to buy Stormy’s story and “would be furious” if he didn’t. Pecker says the reason they didn’t? Because Trump still owed him for the Karen McDougal story and one other!
Felony Convictions
Michael Cohen went to prison for the Karen McDougal and Stormy Daniels payments, both of which were ultimately paid by and benefitted “unindicted co-conspirator 1” — Candidate Trump. It violated campaign finance law to not disclose financial contributions intended to help him win the presidency. Covering up these affairs with hush money obviously meant to do just that.
Trump was eventually convicted just this year of falsifying business records for all the fraud he had to commit to hide the hush money payments to Stormy Daniels.
Again, we should caution, Trump has never admitted to having sex with Stormy Daniels. He has never admitted to having sex with Karen McDougal. But the question you have to ask yourself is, do people commit CRIMES to cover up stories that aren’t true? If they’ve done nothing wrong? Seems kind of insane, right?
The Enquirer & Katie
OK, so we know what happened with Karen and Stormy. But what about Katie Johnson?
Per the book this was not a catch and kill scenario. Ronan wrote that “there was no opportunity to buy this story” as Pecker didn’t get wind of it until after the lawsuit had already been filed. The lawsuit is a matter of public record. You can still read it HERE. But reminder it’s truly horrifying stuff. The point is, he couldn’t catch it. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t kill it.
Farrow wrote that Enquirer editor Dylan Howard tried to convince one of Katie’s lawyers, Lisa Bloom, to drop the case. When Newsweek asked Bloom, she confirmed Howard had reached out to tell her he thought Katie “lacked credibility.” It wasn’t exactly the strong-arm technique, but the fact they were trying at all to bury this story is STAGGERING.
BTW, an AMI spokesperson denied everything Farrow wrote in a statement to Newsweek:
“Mr. Farrow’s narrative is driven by unsubstantiated allegations from questionable sources and while these stories may be dramatic, they are completely untrue.”
Again, we already know they tried to bury at least two other Trump stories — ones those in Trumpworld have already been convicted for. Everything Ronan Farrow wrote about those cases seems to have been proven true in a court of law.
And he wrote that Trump and his pals at the National Enquirer tried to silence Katie Johnson in at least one way. Whatever else Pecker meant by “track down the woman” and “see what they could do about her” is unknown. What we do know is she became too scared at the last minute to reveal her identity publicly — and dropped her lawsuit to protect her anonymity. She hasn’t been heard from since.
But just like how Trump’s very real coverup of the alleged Stormy Daniels affair was what got him in trouble… could there be more to investigate in Team Trump’s response to Katie Johnson’s lawsuit??
If you or someone you know has experienced sexual violence and would like to learn more about resources, consider checking out https://www.rainn.org/resources.
[Image via ABC News/Late Night With Seth Meyers/Jimmy Kimmel Live/CNN/YouTube.]
