The Jeff Bezos/AMI/National Enquirer story doesn't seem to be getting a lot of pub, but it's a big deal.
Go back a couple months. The National Enquirer is owned by parent company AMI. The CEO of AMI is David Pecker.
Pecker reached an immunity deal with prosecutors from the Southern District of New York. As a part of that agreement, Pecker acknowledged that he used the National Enquirer as a device to catch and kill stories that would be seen as unfavorable to then candidate Donald Trump. The SDNY used this deal to get information from Pecker in their prosecution of Michael Cohen. When you hear about Cohen paying off Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougle, he was doing so through the National Enquirer. So Pecker is providing information to the SDNY and he cannot be prosecuted for whatever information he provides.
As a part of that immunity deal though, Pecker agreed that he and the National Enquirer, essentially, would not break any laws. On the surface it sounds like a weird thing to agree to, but it's common in immunity deals. And this last week we saw why it's a common practice.
Jeff Bezos posted emails from staff at the National Enquirer where they basically were blackmailing him. Since then, at least two other reporters have come out and said the Enquirer has blackmailed them.
So now the same prosecutors from the SDNY that have a deal with Pecker, are investigating the recent allegations to the National Enquirer. If they come to find that indeed the National Enquirer broke the law, that immunity deal is off the table. All the information Pecker has provided to prosecutors all of a sudden become fair game and they can seek prosecution.
The secondary track (yet to be corroborated) is the investigators Bezos hired believe a government entity gained access to Bezos text and leaked them to the Enquirer. If that's true and it can be proven that someone in the Trump administration used surveillance technology to access and distribute damning information about a CEO to a private organization, we're looking at MAJOR jail time. And if Trump has a knowledge of or directed these actions, impeachment is the least of his worries. Again, this is an unsubstantiated claim so should be taken with a grain of salt.
It is pretty well accepted that the leak was Bezos' mistress' brother. He gave the emails to AMI. But there are reports that he is tight with a bunch of high up Trumpanzees.
I wouldn't use the term "well accepted" but you are correct that it's being widely reported now that he's being questioned as the source.
A Pecker working for Trump. You couldn't make this stuff up and be believable.
Wasn't there a joke or meme about The Onion going out of business because the truth was stranger than anything they could make up !!
It was in fact the Onion itself who had a story declaring their suspending operations just for that reason.