Muller's investigation now includes National Enquirer ties to Cohen and Trump according to NY Times

Investigators Focus on Another Trump Ally: The National Enquirer

President Trump has long had ties to the nation’s major media players. But his connections with the country’s largest tabloid publisher, American Media Inc., run deeper than most.

A former top executive of Mr. Trump’s casino business sits on A.M.I.’s four-member board of directors, and an adviser joined the media company after the election. The company’s chairman, David J. Pecker, is a close friend of the president’s.

And in the Trump era, A.M.I.’s flagship tabloid, The National Enquirer, has taken a decidedly political turn, regularly devoting covers to the president’s triumphs and travails with articles headlined “Trump’s Plan For World Peace!” and “Proof! FBI Plot to Impeach Trump!”

Since the early stages of his campaign in 2015, Mr. Trump, his lawyer Michael D. Cohen and Mr. Pecker have strategized about protecting him and lashing out at his political enemies.

We’ve known this.

Here is the new twist;

Now the tabloid company has been drawn into a sweeping federal investigation of Mr. Cohen’s activities, including efforts to head off potentially damaging stories about Mr. Trump during his run for the White House. In one instance, The Enquirer bought but did not publish a story about an alleged extramarital relationship years earlier with the presidential candidate, an unusual decision for a scandal sheet.

The federal inquiry could pose serious legal implications for the president and his campaign committee. It also presents thorny questions about A.M.I.’s First Amendment protections, and whether its record in supporting Mr. Trump somehow opens the door to scrutiny usually reserved for political organizations.

A search warrant federal prosecutors in New York served to Mr. Cohen this week requests, among other things, all communications between him, Mr. Pecker and Dylan Howard, the business’s chief content officer. The company was in touch with Mr. Cohen, The New York Times previously reported, as it pursued its deal to acquire the rights to a former Playboy model’s story about an affair with Mr. Trump.

The company is also facing a Federal Election Commission complaintclaiming that the $150,000 payment to the woman, Karen McDougal, represented an illegal campaign contribution. A.M.I. is in the process of responding.

...

In A.M.I., Mr. Trump has had an unusually powerful media backer, one that complements the supportive prime-time slate at Fox News.

Faux News, Sinclair, National Enquirer, right wing radio, the propaganda machine the dictator wannabe needs to brainwash millions. 

I do not know anyone that reads the National Enquirer but they exist.  Thankfully their circulation numbers are going down significantly;

Here I disagree with the NY Times;

But most of its sales come over the counter at $4.99 a copy. The Enquirer provides a useful platform for a politician seeking votes from average Americans, in a place candidates have gone to show their familiarity with everyday life: the supermarket checkout lane.

It’s readers are not “average Americans”, they are complete idiots, and hopefully “idiotes” as the ancient Greeks called them.

An idiot in Athenian democracy was someone who was characterized by self-centeredness and concerned almost exclusively with private—as opposed to public—affairs.[7] Idiocy was the natural state of ignorance into which all persons were born and its opposite, citizenship, was effected through formalized education.[7] In Athenian democracy, idiots were born and citizens were made through education (although citizenship was also largely hereditary). "Idiot" originally referred to a "layman, person lacking professional skill". Declining to take part in public life, such as democratic government of the polis (city state), was considered dishonorable. "Idiots" were seen as having bad judgment in public and political matters.