What Is the Saying About Quacking Like a Duck?

Okay, I thought I had heard everything during my lifetime, but this blows me away: the man who attempted to extort $2 million from Dave Letterman in exchange for not publishing the sordid story of his office affairs says it was merely a business transaction. His lawyer insists that because Halderman repeatedly stated that Letterman did not have to pay and/or accept the offer, it’s not extortion or blackmail.

Really? I thought all these years that blackmail/extortion is when one person, who has something criminal or embarrassing about another person, says, “Pay me x amount of money and it all goes away. Don’t pay me and I expose the dirt I have on you and you deal with the consequences.” That is what happened in this instance: Halderman said to Letterman, “Pay me the money and it goes away; don’t pay and I publish the story and you deal with the consequences.”

No, the lawyer says, it was simply a business offer: pay me and you own the story; don’t pay me and I publish it and you deal with the consequences. Halderman would have made a hell of a lot more money had he published his expose, so why would he offer it to Letterman in exchange for a mere $2 million? That's why it's called extortion/blackmail.

I will never condone what Letterman did, nor how he made his conduct a joke on national TV, instead of signing off the air and going home to his wife, but it’s how he makes his living. Letterman was smart to get ahead of the story and diffuse the situation that could have been much worse as a result of refusing to pay the extortion. I'm sure Letterman's public exposure of the blackmail attempt blew Halderman's plans to make a buck off the comedian all to hell, as well as making him look like an idiot for thinking he could get away with the scheme. If he's convicted of the crime, he cannot publish the manuscript because law prevents a criminal from benefiting financially from a crime, so I guess hiring a lawyer is just an attempt to keep the publication doors open. He'll need the money to pay his legal fees!

No matter how you dress up the “business” transaction, it was an extortion attempt, plain and simple. Man up, dude.