The publisher of US tabloid the National Enquirer has reached a deal with prosecutors to avoid charges over its role in paying a woman hush money.
Former Playboy model Karen McDougal has said she sold the story of a months-long affair with US President Donald Trump for $US150,000 ($A207,698) to American Media Inc but it was never published.
The incident involved a practice known as "catch and kill", designed to prevent a potentially damaging article from being published.
In a statement, the US Attorney's Office for the Southern District said it agreed not to prosecute AMI after the company admitted it made the $US150,000 payment "in concert with a candidate's presidential campaign, and in order to ensure that the woman did not publicise damaging allegations about the candidate before the 2016 presidential election".
Prosecutors announced the agreement on Wednesday, the same day Trump's former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, was sentenced to three years in prison, in part for orchestrating hush payments to McDougal and adult film star Stormy Daniels, in violation of campaign laws before the election.
AMI's chief executive officer David Pecker, a longtime friend of Trump and Cohen, had met with prosecutors to describe their hush-money deals with McDougal and Daniels ahead of the 2016 US election won by Trump, the Wall Street Journal reported in August.
Pecker and another AMI executive were granted immunity as part of prosecutors' probe, Vanity Fair also reported.
Representatives for AMI and Pecker could not be immediately reached for comment.
