The Sunday Read: ‘What I Saw Working at The National Enquirer During Donald Trump’s Rise’

At the center of the criminal case against former President
Donald Trump in Manhattan is the accusation that Trump took part
in a scheme to turn The National Enquirer and its sister
publications into an arm of his 2016 presidential campaign. The
documents detailed three “hush money” payments made to a series
of individuals to guarantee their silence about potentially
damaging stories in the months before the election. Because this
was done with the goal of helping his election chances, the case
implied, these payments amounted to a form of illegal,
undisclosed campaign spending. And because Trump created
paperwork to make the payments seem like regular legal expenses,
that amounted to a criminal effort at a coverup, argued Alvin
Bragg, the district attorney of Manhattan. Trump has denied the
charges against him.


For Lachlan Cartwright, reading the indictment was like stepping
through the looking glass, because it described a three-year
period in his own professional life, one that he has come to
deeply regret. Now, as a former president faces a criminal trial
for the first time in American history, Cartwright is forced to
grapple with what really happened at The Enquirer in those years
— and whether and how he can ever set things right.