Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez were just spotted on a laid-back Florida date — as a Saudi activist revealed he has received death threats after he aided the investigation into Saudi Arabia’s role in the leak of Bezos’ racy texts to Sanchez.
The couple — who began an affair while he was with then-wife MacKenzie and Sanchez was wed to superagent Patrick Whitesell — were recently seen shopping at the Ocean Key Resort in Key West.
They seemed relaxed, spies said, even as Saudi activist Iyad el-Baghdadi announced that the CIA said he is a target due to his investigation into how the National Enquirer obtained Bezos’ messages and photos for its January story.
El-Baghdadi had been probing Twitter accounts controlled by the state and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, known as MBS.
The accounts began attacking Bezos in October as a reaction to the coverage in the Washington Post, owned by Bezos, of the murder of its columnist Jamal Khashoggi, who was killed inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.
Of the Twitter assault on Bezos, el-Baghdadi said, “He stood by the Washington Post and its reporting on [Khashoggi’s] murder. MBS saw this as betrayal, and it seems MBS . . . exploited . . . their Twitter networks, their cyber capabilities, their friends in DC to unleash a series of actions aimed at punishing Jeff Bezos.” A whistleblower also told him months before the Enquirer exposé that MBS was plotting to target WaPo staff “to expose either sexual or financial scandals.”
El-Baghdadi was contacted by Bezos’ head of security, Gavin de Becker, who invited him to join the investigation, which “concluded that the Saudis were inside Jeff Bezos’ phone,” el-Baghdadi said.
Their findings were handed to the Department of Justice.
El-Baghdadi continued on his website, Arab Tyrant Manual, “It was during my work on the Bezos investigation that I felt I had crosshairs on my back . . . Given [that] the warning of the threats came from [the CIA, it] means this is very serious.”