Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators

by Ronan Farrow

Some of the employees felt that the most significant reward was AMI’s steadily accumulating blackmail power over Trump. Howard bragged to friends that he was turning down television job offers because he felt his current position, and his ability to hold negative stories over people, gave him more power than any career in traditional journalism. “In theory, you would think that Trump has all the power in that relationship,” Maxine Page, the AMI veteran, told me, “but in fact Pecker has the power—he has the power to run these stories. He knows where the bodies are buried.” The concern had run through the conversations with McDougal, too. “Someone in a high position that controls our country, if they can influence him,” she said of Trump, “it’s a big deal.”