#Trump faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in connection w/a #HushMoney payment made to a porn star to influence the 2016 election. The case could be in the jury’s hands as early as Wed.
#Blanche addresses the 3 specific #CatchAndKill deals prosecutors allege #Pecker was involved in, all of which they say were designed to protect #Trump. Defense argues all 3 stories are false.
He characterizes the 1st, involving a doorman at a #TrumpOrganization bldg, as “literally a made up story designed to harm President Trump.”
Blanche talks about Playboy model #KarenMcDougal who sold the rights to her story of an affair w/Trump to The #NationalEnquirer's parent co, #AMI.
charges are falsifying business records to hide #HushMoney payments in lead up to 2016 election to #influence electorate
just one Trump supporter at the courthouse draped in a Trump flag.
#StormyDaniels's lawyer, #KeithDavidson, to return to stand. He negotiated the hush-money payment at the center of the case, & is expected to lay out details of the deal.
Hicks says that she was told by #Trump that he had not had an affair w/ McDougal, but that she did not remember him “verbatim” saying that he had no knowledge of that hush-money deal.
This is testimony of a lie shared w/the media & public.
#HopeHicks was Trump's WH communications director when #KarenMcDougal sued to be released from her #AMI contract that barred her from speaking about her relationship w/ #Trump.
Hicks testifies Westerhout, Trump's exec asst, texted her, "Hey - the president wants to know if you called David #Pecker again?"
She adds that when she spoke to Trump after McDougal was interviewed on CNN by Anderson Cooper, she didn’t “recall him mentioning Mr. Pecker in those conversations."
#Pecker said on Tues he had agreed to be the “eyes & ears” of the #TrumpCampaign & used #AMI to deal w/threats to #Trump’s reputation.
After the #AccessHollywood tape came out in Oct 2016, where Trump’s boasts about groping women, one of Pecker’s editors scrubbed an AMI publication’s website of a 2008 article describing Trump as a “playboy man.”
FYI
Yesterday, prosecutors asked #Pecker to walk through his non-prosecution agreement in connection w/the 2018 federal investigation into the actions of #MichaelCohen & #NationalEnquirer’s parent company #AMI.
#Merchan told the jury that it was offered to provide context & to help them assess Pecker's credibility. He added that it wasn’t evidence of #Trump's guilt.
#Bove's point is that #AMI, The #NationalEnquirer's parent company, did print health columns by #KarenMcDougal - ghostwritten by others - & put her on magazine covers, not in The NE but in its lifestyle publications.
But after executing the deal in Aug, the company did none of that until well after WSJ reporters revealed the existence of the deal in Oct 2016.
#Bove points out the section of the non-prosecution agreement stating the federal govt "will not criminally prosecute" #AMI.
Asked whether there's mention of a #CampaignFinancial violation in the agreement, #Pecker answers, “No."
Bove tries to get Pecker to say money wasn’t part of the #Trump Tower meeting agreement.
Pecker corrects Bove, “There was a discussion that I was going to be the eyes and ears of the campaign," including notifying #MichaelCohen of women selling stories.
#Pecker is openly admitting to his involvement in the #CatchAndKill scheme & is doing so quite candidly.
Pecker is now detailing the agreement #AMI, #Nationa Enquirer's parent company, struck w/ #KarenMcDougal. The contract guaranteed she would be put on 2 magazine covers & that the company would have the right to publish fitness columns by her. It's worth noting how bizarre this set-up was. It wasn't just buying her story — it was also giving her work w/AMI.
The deal went above & beyond for #KarenMcDougal & included the hiring of ghostwriters to pen her stories.
#Pecker says that the contract was intended to stipulate that McDougal would perform "services" for #AMI, that there was a basis for the $150k she was receiving.
Pecker is asked if The #NationalEnquirer had any intention to publish McDougal's story. Pecker is blunt: "No, we did not."
This is pure #CatchAndKill.
#Pecker's last few minutes of testimony were key. He said that his company had disguised the #HushMoney payment to #KarenMcDougal as a deal for services she would perform for #AMI.
This is important for the prosecution's case:
They have to show that the #conspiracy that they accuse #Trump of participating in to win the 2016 election was conducted through "unlawful means." Pecker just indicated that it was.
“…Dino the #doorman? during my time at… #AMI, the #NationalEnquirer’s parent co, I was one of the editors pushing our reporters to confirm that story. #KarenMcDougal’s fitness columns were published only after I instructed a colleague…to put them together. These were all pretty normal things to do during…a bizarre period at AMI, when it was allegedly enlisted — in some ways that I saw & in others that I didn’t — into the service of helping #Trump become president.”
We’re back with direct imaging with Masayuki Kuzuhara.
They used the #Subaru#telescope to observe nearby accelerating stars and search for substellar companions.
They discovered 4 substellar companions, one of which is the brown dwarf HIP 21152 B. The spectrum reveals water and methane. They further modelled the orbit, giving them a dynamical mass of around 28 Mjup.#ExSSV
Another program is probing the multiplicity of 20 Y dwarfs. #AMI will not work for faint primaries, so they use a thing called #kernel#phase, using the telescope as an interferometer.
The WISE-0336 system is a Y-Y binary. For the 19 other targets they didn’t find anything, so they are looking at detection limits. #ExSSV