The investigation into President Trump’s former lawyer and “fixer” Michael D. Cohen has ensnared the publisher of The National Enquirer, further thrusting the media company into a federal inquiry involving a onetime top lieutenant to a sitting president.
Prosecutors with the Southern District of New York subpoenaed executives at the publisher, American Media, this spring, according to people who have been briefed about the move but agreed to share the details about it only on the condition of anonymity.
The prosecutors had already asked for communications between Mr. Cohen and American Media’s chairman, David J. Pecker, and its chief content officer, Dylan Howard. That request was part of a search warrant they secured for Mr. Cohen’s home, office, hotel room and electronic devices in April.
The people familiar with the investigation said prosecutors sought similar communications from Mr. Howard and Mr. Pecker.
During the presidential campaign, American Media had arranged to effectively silence Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model who claimed to have had an affair with Mr. Trump years earlier, with a $150,000 payout.
The payment caught the attention of investigators conducting a broad investigation into Mr. Cohen’s efforts on behalf of Mr. Trump during the campaign, as well as his own business dealings. It is also the subject of a complaint at the Federal Election Commission.
The New York Times reported in February that Mr. Cohen had been in contact with Ms. McDougal’s lawyer at the time, Keith Davidson, as Mr. Davidson was negotiating with American Media on her behalf; Mr. Cohen was not directly a party to the deal.
In a statement on Wednesday, the tabloid publisher said, “American Media Inc. has, and will continue to, comply with any and all requests that do not jeopardize or violate its protected sources or materials pursuant to our First Amendment rights.”
Even with this administration’s heated invective against the news media, federal subpoenas of media companies remain exceedingly rare. Justice Department officials tend to approve them only after a deliberative process at the agency’s highest levels.
Several First Amendment lawyers said in interviews that the situation involving American Media and Mr. Cohen was equally unusual.
Mr. Pecker has acknowledged being friends with Mr. Cohen and Mr. Trump. American Media’s deal with Ms. McDougal — including buying the exclusive rights to her story about Mr. Trump, which it did not publish — was what is known in the tabloid world as a “catch and kill.”
American Media has denied any wrongdoing. And Mr. Pecker has portrayed the deal with Ms. McDougal as a business arrangement, noting that it also included rights to use her on its magazine covers and to publish fitness columns under her name.
But Mr. Pecker told The New Yorker last year that as far as he was concerned, once Ms. McDougal struck the deal she was part of the company, and that “once she’s part of the company, then on the outside she can’t be bashing Trump and American Media.”
At the Federal Election Commission, American Media is facing claims that the payment to Ms. McDougal constituted an illegal political contribution to Mr. Trump, meant to stanch negative publicity against him during the campaign.
Political donations to candidates are capped at $5,400 per individual during election cycles, and candidates may not receive money directly from corporate treasuries. American Media has denied that the payment constituted a contribution.
“Any time that a news organization is being subpoenaed, as a First Amendment lawyer, that raises a red flag,” said Mark Bailen, an attorney at BakerHostetler in Washington. “The question is, is this related to the editorial enterprise, or is it related to the business enterprise, or even a personal consideration for one of the employees or publishers or owners or executives of the company? That would take it out of the realm of having a direct newsroom impact.”
The main concern, he said, is “protecting reporters from having to turn over state’s evidence at the whim of the government.”
News of the subpoena was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.
