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Elkan Abramowitz, an attorney for American Media Inc. CEO David Pecker, told ABC News' George Stephanopoulos that the incident between Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and the National Enquirer does not amount to extortion or blackmail: "It's absolutely not a crime to ask someone to simply tell the truth."
The backdrop: Bezos published a lengthy Medium post on Thursday alleging that the National Enquirer threatened to publish nude photos of him and journalist Lauren Sanchez. The threat allegedly came after Bezos launched an investigation into the magazine's political motives, including actions it has taken on behalf of the Trump administration and the Saudi government. Some have speculated that if found guilty of extortion, AMI may have violated its plea deal with the Southern District of New York.