57. Mefloquine Dispatches: Catch and Kill, 30th March 2023 (Final)

The top story for the latest Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide newsletter is an interesting one. The Royal Commissions Amendment (Enhancing Engagement) Regulations 2023 was signed off by General David Hurley (Ret) on the 30th March without much fanfare. It’s a fancy title for something known more simply as ‘Catch and Kill’.

The Royal Commission explains.

 

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To make sense of this legislation you need to understand what happened to former Playboy model, Karen McDougal. Here is a suggested piece via The Guardian. Prosecutors try to connect hush money scheme to other alleged Trump affairs. Excerpt:

The release of Donald Trump’s indictment on Tuesday confirmed the news that the 34 felony counts against the former president involved hush money payments to Stormy Daniels, the adult film star. But prosecutors also tried to connect that scheme to other extramarital affairs, including Trump’s alleged relationship with former Playboy model Karen McDougal.

As the Wall Street Journal first reported in 2016, the parent company of the National Enquirer, which endorsed Trump’s first presidential bid, agreed to pay McDougal $150,000 for her story about an alleged affair with Trump beginning in 2006. But the tabloid ultimately did not publish McDougal’s account, effectively quashing the story in an industry tactic known as “catch and kill”.

Make of that, what you will…