National Enquirer 'kept safe full of damaging Trump stories', sources say after chief granted immunity by federal prosecutors

Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox Get our free Inside Washington email Get our free Inside Washington email SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Mr Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen pleaded guilty this week to campaign finance violations alleging that he, Mr Trump and the supermarket tabloid were involved in buying the silence of Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal. The Associated Press said that several people familiar with the Enquirer's parent company American Media Inc revealed on condition of anonymity that the safe was used to keep details of "catch-and-kill" deals, in which exclusive rights to stories about celebrities were bought to keep them out of the news. But after The Wall Street Journal initially published the first details of Playboy model Karen McDougal's catch-and-kill deal, Mr Pecker and the company's chief content officer, Dylan Howard, removed them from the safe in the weeks before Trump's inauguration, it is claimed. The publication began questioning President Barack Obama's birthplace and American citizenship in print, an effort that Mr Trump promoted for several years, former staffers said.