Donald Trump tried to cover up allegations that he raped a 13-year-old – just like Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal, says Ronan Farrow!

(Warning: Potentially triggering content)

Well, isn’t that interesting? Just a few weeks ago Donald Trump became a convicted felon. And just last week, a hell of a lot of people finally learned that he was accused of raping a 13-year-old girl. As it turns out, these two scandals are related. Read on to find out how…

Katie Johnson’s claims

OK, let’s rewind. For those who haven’t seen it yet: In 2016, a woman with the pseudonym Katie Johnson came forward and claimed that she was raped by Trump and his buddy in 1994 Jeffrey Epstein in Epstein’s New York apartment. She was only 13 at the time, but as we know, that’s hardly a deterrent for Epstein. Katie claimed in a lawsuit that Trump went first, tying her to a bed and deflowering her while she begged him to stop. She says he also refused to use a condom – and told her to “get a damn abortion” if she got pregnant.

The thing is, in 2016, Americans didn’t know who the hell Jeffrey Epstein was. Even though it was a horror that a presidential candidate was accused of raping a child, the story barely got spread. Or maybe no one wanted to believe it. Back then, the political landscape wasn’t as fucked up as it is today, so most people might have found the whole thing too offensive to be true. The stuff of bad fiction.

Related: Trump’s answer to the Epstein question is SO awkward!

But now we live in a world where we KNOW that Epstein ran a sex trafficking ring of teenagers for powerful men. None of those men faced any consequences, in part because of Epstein’s untimely “suicide.” But he did not engage in sex trafficking to no one. They’re out there, and we all know it. At this point, Katie’s allegations don’t seem so crazy anymore. When you hear about a woman who says she was raped by Jeffrey Epstein at age 13, you think: of course that happened. This is what this man did.

But as I said, it just wasn’t a big story back then. (Maybe Hillary Clinton did not push it in the election campaign because her husband, like Trump, The invoice was all over Epstein’s flight logs too, you know?)

Ultimately, Katie Johnson withdrew her lawsuit, citing fear for her life after Trump and Epstein allegedly threatened to kill her and her family if she ever told them what they had done. And suddenly the whole thing was over.

But for a few months, Trump had to contend with these allegations, which at any moment could become a bigger story than the Access to Hollywood Band – and could ruin his campaign. The damn race was pretty close in the end.

So what was Katie Johnson’s plan before she decided to drop her lawsuit and go into hiding?

Catch and kill

Ronan FarrowThe investigation of may have led him to the answer. In his 2019 book, it turns out that Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies and a Conspiracy to Protect Predatorsthe respected journalist mentioned Katie’s lawsuit. He claimed that Trump’s buddy David PeckerChairman of the Board of American Media Inc. (AMI)the published The National Enquirer tried to help Trump destroy history back then.

He wrote about Trump’s notorious fixer, Michael Cohenreceived assurances from InquiryThe then editor, Danielle Hoffman“that they would track down the woman with the rape accusation and see what they could do about her.”

If all this sounds familiar, then it is the practice that the book is about – catch and kill is the name of the strategy where a publication buys exclusive rights to a story only to BURY it. They allegedly did this with Karen McDougalpaid her $150,000 for her story about a nine-month affair with Trump in 2006-2007 while he was married to Melania Trump.

Karen confirmed accepting the payment in a high-profile interview in 2018. A settlement with AMI the following month voided the non-disclosure agreement she had signed as part of the catch and kill program. AMI eventually admitted to making the payment.

Cohen, who was on trial, released a tape of a conversation in which Trump confirmed whether a payment of “one hundred and fifty” was required for “our friend David.” As with David Pecker. Pecker actually confirmed this payment years later in Trump’s trial. He said it not do the catching and killing with Stormy Daniels — but not because Trump didn’t try. Pecker testified that Cohen tried more than once to get him to believe Stormy’s story and would have been “livid” if he didn’t. Pecker says the reason they didn’t? Because Trump still owed him money for the Karen McDougal story and another one!

Convictions for serious crimes

Michael Cohen went to prison for payments to Karen McDougal and Stormy Daniels. Both payments were ultimately made by and for the benefit of “unindicted co-conspirator 1” – candidate Trump. It was a violation of campaign finance law not to disclose financial contributions intended to help him win the presidency. The cover-up of these affairs with hush money apparently had exactly that purpose.

Trump was finally convicted this year for Falsification of business documents for all the fraud he had to commit to hide the hush money payments to Stormy Daniels.

Again, we should caution: Trump never admitted to having sex with Stormy Daniels. He never admitted to having sex with Karen McDougal. But the question you have to ask is: Do people commit CRIMES to cover up stories that aren’t true? When they’ve done nothing wrong? That seems kind of crazy, right?

The Investigator and Katie

OK, so we know what happened to Karen and Stormy. But what about Katie Johnson?

According to the book, this was not a catch-and-kill scenario. Ronan wrote that “there was no opportunity to believe this story” because Pecker only got wind of it after the lawsuit had already been filed. The lawsuit is public. You can still read it HERE. But as a reminder, it is truly horrific stuff. The point is, he couldn’t catch it. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t kill It.

Farrow wrote that Inquiry Editor Dylan Howard tried to convince one of Katie’s lawyers, Lisa Bloomto drop the case. If Newsweek asked Bloom, she confirmed that Howard had reached out to her to tell her that he felt Katie was “not credible.” It wasn’t exactly a violent tactic, but the fact that they even tried to cover up this story is TERRIFYING.

Incidentally, an AMI spokesman denied everything Farrow wrote in a statement to Newsweek:

“Mr. Farrow’s narrative is based on unsubstantiated allegations from questionable sources, and while these stories may be dramatic, they are completely untrue.”

And we already know that they tried to cover up at least two other Trump stories – stories that people in Trumpworld have already been convicted of. Everything Ronan Farrow wrote about those cases seems to have been proven true in court.

And he wrote that Trump and his friends in National Investigator tried to silence Katie Johnson in at least one way. What else Pecker meant by “tracking down the woman” and “seeing what they can do about her” is unknown. What we do know is that at the last minute she was too scared to reveal her identity publicly – and withdrew her lawsuit to protect her anonymity. She hasn’t been heard from since.

But just as Trump got into trouble for his very real cover-up of Stormy Daniels’ alleged affair…could there be more to examine in Team Trump’s response to the Katie Johnson lawsuit??

If you or someone you know has experienced sexual violence and would like to learn more about resources, please see: https://www.rainn.org/resources.

(Image via ABC News/Late Night With Seth Meyers/Jimmy Kimmel Live/CNN/YouTube.)