it s certainly not a normal business negotiation. or if there were crimes committed in the way in which they obtained the information about bezos, that could lead the southern district to decide to tear up their nonprosecution agreement and charge them with whatever crimes they may have committed. stu, let me ask you. when we go back to the timing here you have david pecker cooperating with the southern district of new york last fall. obviously all of this with jeff bezos has come to light since then. is it possible that he s still talking to trump or favorable to trump or trying to take jeff bezos down because the washington post is slamming trump? not knowing firsthand but i couldn t imagine how they re not still in touch. even when this story first broke, trump actually applauded the enquirer if you remember the coverage of that. so knowing how trump welcomes people back into his home after he s thrown them away, pecker does the same thing. it s an advantageous relationship fo
we wanted something, they wanted something. but that s not how normal business is conducted. did the president play a part in obtaining the images? did they come to him from a supporter somehow connected to the woman having an affair with him. i don t want to speculate. these are the questions. to be clear, you were doing political you have a point of view but as a journalist-related person, that s not how journalists operate. we do not do this. i wouldn t ask cnn to stipulate to an agreement to something publicly which they do not know to be true and in this case jeff bezos suspects this is not true. jeff bezos seems to be saying that they have reason to believe this was politically motivated and that s why he was appalled to be asked to stipulate. on this crucial line, no knowledge or basis for suggesting american media coverage s is pliolitically motivated, that is new and different and stunning, right?
will ripley doing excellent reporting as he always does. you re going to be very busy over these next several weeks. will, thank you very much for that report. to our viewers, thanks very much for watching. i m wolf blitzer in the situation room. erin burnett out front starts right now. out front, next breaking news, president trump furious at the chairman of the house intelligence committee tonight for hiring former national security staffers, at least one of whom worked for trump to investigate trump. more breaking news, amazon founder jeff bezos 00 accusing the national enquirer of extortion and blackmail. it is an extraordinary online post with the e-mails as proof. is the national enquirer still doing president trump s bidding? plus the green new deal. alexandria ocasio-cortez met with major skepticism from her own party. let s go out front. good evening, i m erin burnett.
personally benefitting himself at the expense of the public trust. so we re interested in pursuing getting our hands on tax returns that he promised as a candidate that he would provide and still has not. how many years do you want? well, the general practice and custom has been for candidates for vice president and president to provide several years of tax returns including current year, so each president has provided, you know, i think it s up to the last 8 to 10 years of their tax returns so that people can evaluate what kinds of businesses do they own, what kinds of interests do they have, financial interests do they have and again, to answer the question of whether or not the policies that they are pursuing benefit them personally. so on this front obviously the president is almost he s an individual but he sort of isn t, right?
this affair. listen to him when he s asked about bezos divorce. do you have any reaction to jeff bezos s divorce and his affair? i wish him luck. i wish him luck. it s going to be a beauty. okay, can i ask you a question here. if president trump s hands in any way end up linked to this and jeff bezos is obviously making it clear that he thinks they could be, what does it mean? there could be all sorts of things. is he part of an extortion scheme involving these e-mails? is he going to use the photos to try to obtain more favorable coverage from the washington post ? and are these e-mails extortion in your view? it s again a very detailed list but i won t publish them unless you say this. it doesn t look like a normal business negotiation which is what the usual defense is when someone says extortion and you say, no, no, this was business,