Trump Doorman Says Tabloid Demanded Silence About Affair: Report

MIDTOWN MANHATTAN, NY — The National Enquirer's publisher paid a Trump building doorman $30,000 during the 2016 presidential campaign to silence rumors that President Donald Trump had fathered an illegitimate child, according to the doorman and multiple reports.

The doorman, Dino Sajudin, received the five-figure payout from American Media, Inc. — publisher of the National Enquirer, a Trump favorite — in late 2015, the New Yorker first reported. In exchange for the money, Sajudin agreed to sell the Enquirer the exclusive rights to rumors he had heard from "high-level Trump employees" that Trump fathered an illegitimate child with an employee in the late 1980s, the New Yorker reported.

After news of the deal hit, Sajudin released a statement claiming he was working at Trump World Tower — located on Midtown's east side near the United Nations — when he was "instructed not to criticize President Trump's former housekeeper due to a prior relationship she had with President Trump which produced a child."

The Trump Organization told the Washington Post that Sajudin's statement was "completely false" and accused Sajudin of repeatedly trying to sell fake stories.

“You know I took a polygraph test,” Sajudin responded in an interview with the Post.

The payout was also confirmed by the Associated Press. Sajudin was subject to a $1 million penalty should he violate the terms of the agreement with the American Media, Inc., the AP reported. The publisher released the former doorman from the contract after the 2016 election, the AP reported.

Neither the Associated Press nor the New Yorker were able to determine whether the rumors Sajudin had heard are true. Both publications spoke with the woman at the center of the rumors, who denied them. The Trump Organization also denied the rumors to the New Yorker.

"This is all fake," the woman, who was not named, told the AP. "I think they lost their money."

A source familiar with the agreement between Sajudin and American Media, Inc., told the Washington Post that Sajudin was required to take a lie detector test — which he passed — as part of the agreement.

The $30,000 payment to the former doorman could be the third instance of a Trump associate paying to kill a potentially damaging report about the president during the 2016 election.

Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model, claimed she was tricked by American Media, Inc. into signing a $150,000 agreement to hand over rights to a story detailing an affair with the president. Trump's personal attorney Michael Cohen — whose law offices were raided by the FBI this week — reportedly paid $130,000 to porn star Stormy Daniels for her silence.

American Media, Inc. executives told the Associated Press and Washington Post that the $30,000 payment to Sajudin was not an instance of "catch and kill" — when a tabloid secures exclusive rights to a story in order to kill it and protect its subject.

"AMI categorically denies that Donald Trump or Michael Cohen had anything to do with its decision not to pursue a story about a 'love child' that it determined was not credible," National Enquirer executive Dylan Howard told the Washington Post. "The suggestion that [AMI Chief Executive] David Pecker has ever used company funds to 'shut down' this or any investigation is not true."

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