Jeff Bezos' private investigator says he's questioning Lauren Sanchez's Trump-supporting brother over the Amazon CEO's leaked texts
- Jeff Bezos' security chief has told The Daily Beast that he is investigating the brother of Lauren Sanchez over the Amazon CEO's leaked texts.
- The National Enquirer last month published intimate texts sent by Bezos to Lauren Sanchez, and Bezos mounted a private investigation to find out how they got into the public domain.
- Michael Sanchez is an outspoken supporter of Donald Trump with links to the president's political circle, including the recently-indicted Roger Stone, the Beast said.
Jeff Bezos' top security consultant told The Daily Beast he has questioned Lauren Sanchez's brother, Michael Sanchez, over leaked texts from Bezos which were published in the National Enquirer.
Bezos' security chief Gavin de Becker is leading Bezos' privately funded investigation into how his intimate texts to former TV anchor Lauren Sanchez ended up in the hands of the Enquirer.
De Becker confirmed to the Daily Beast that he had looked into Lauren Sanchez's brother, Michael Sanchez. "Michael Sanchez has been among the people we've been speaking with and looking at," he said.
While he did not elaborate on the details of their conversations, he added that "strong leads point to political motives" in leaking the messages to the press.
Sanchez is a self-described supporter of Donald Trump, and the US president has a longstanding relationship with David Pecker, the CEO of National Enquirer's parent company, American Media Inc.
The National Enquirer's publisher admitted in December 2018 that it had bought the stories of women who claimed to have had affairs with Trump in order to silence them, in a so-called "catch-and-kill" strategy.
Bezos has been a bugbear of Trump's for years, as he is the owner of The Washington Post - a paper Trump frequently says is culpable of bias against his administration. A report from Axios in March 2018 also claimed that Trump was "obsessed" with taking down Amazon.
The president has tweeted mockingly about Bezos' divorce from his wife MacKenzie and told the press that the legal proceedings are "going to be a beauty."
Read more: Trump invented a new nickname for Jeff Bezos in a tweet mocking his divorce
The Daily Beast reports that Michael Sanchez associates with prominent Trump figures including Roger Stone, Trump's former campaign manager who was recently indicted by Robert Mueller.
Roger Stone confirmed to the Beast that he and Sanchez knew one another, saying in a text: "I do know Michael Sanchez - very good guy." He denied hacking into Bezos' phone, although the Beast had not suggested this was the case.
The Beast also unearthed links between Sanchez and former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser Carter Page. "Michael is a friend and his agency, Axis Management, has represented me in the past," Page told the Beast in a text.
Michael Sanchez tweeted on Thursday, seemingly in response to de Becker talking to the press. "Gavin de Becker, @JeffBezos right hand man, spreads fake, unhinged conservative conspiracy theories, 'dog whistle' smears, with on-the-record quotes to trashy tabloids," he said.
Sanchez declined to comment when contacted by the Beast.