The article says AMI already knew about the affair before Sanchez was contaced by AMI about the affair.

>AMI has repeatedly insisted they had only one source on their Bezos story, but the Journal reports that when the Enquirer began conversations with Michael Sanchez, they had “already been investigating whether Mr. Bezos and Ms. Sanchez were having an affair.” Michael Sanchez has since confirmed to Page Six that when the Enquirer contacted him back in July, they had already “seen text exchanges” between the couple. If accurate, the WSJ and Page Six stories would mean, clearly and obviously, that the initial information came from other channels—another source or method.

The underlying claim by the author is that this narrative is a lie, created in order to hide the Saudi government’s involvement.

Apparently not conspiracy theory enough.

From my reading this is exactly what happened. Reported by AP News, CNN, Fox News, and The Verge.

If you read the linked article, it's clear that somebody told the enquirer to approach the brother-in-law to buy the photos —— somebody already knew that Bezos and his mistress were exchanging inappropriate texts before the brother-in-law. Bezos’s investigators claim to have forwarded evidence to the US government that shows the Saudis were behind it. We’ll see what happens given how close this administration is to MBS.

This is just privatized parallel construction weaponized against a critic of the Saudi government.

Let me start with saying that in no way do I think the Saudis are not nefarious or clear of any guilt in this case.

However, the original post asked how the digital material was obtained. The post, and many others, imply some technical wizardry was used to obtain said info. Who is to say the Saudis did not employ traditional human intelligence to learn that the brother had access to the ‘dirt’?

My point is simply: just because the Saudis knew which stone to turn over does not mean they used some technical prowess to turn over said stone.

[edit] clarify my stone turning over analogy.

De Becker (who is as credible as technical investigators get) said that his investigators along with outside experts developed evidence that showed that the Saudis had access to Bezos's phone. He turned this evidence over to Federal investigators.

Without knowing more, it's hard to say exactly what happened, but there is plenty of evidence of the Saudis, along with other repressive regimes, spending huge sums of money buying and weaponizing zero-days to target critics. So they had the means, the motive, and the opportunity to target him..