Karen McDougal Describes Alleged Affair With Trump in New Yorker Article<br />But I didn’t understand the full parameters of it.”<br />The publisher’s $150,000 payment to Ms. McDougal was reported by The Wall Street Journal just days before the 2016 election,<br />but the Friday report sheds new light on the deal-making process, which Ms. McDougal and those close to her described as exploitative.<br />Ms. McDougal, a former Playboy model, wrote an eight-page note, obtained by The New Yorker, describing the relationship, which<br />allegedly began in 2006, while Mr. Trump was married to his current wife, Melania Trump, and lasted about nine months.<br />Ms. McDougal, a Republican, told The New Yorker that she was at first reluctant to share her story with the tabloid, but<br />that she decided to proceed in 2016 after a former friend began posting about the alleged affair on social media<br />A Friday report published by The New Yorker describes how a tabloid publisher may have moved to “catch<br />and kill” the story and pay off the woman, Karen McDougal, as Mr. Trump’s candidacy gained momentum.<br />Former American Media employees told The New Yorker<br />that the company’s chairman and chief executive, David Pecker, who is close with Mr. Trump, routinely bought stories with no intention of running them, sometimes using the pieces as leverage.<br />Ms. McDougal said she regretted signing a contract with American Media Inc., the publisher of The National Enquirer, for the rights to her story.
