The prosecution’s discussion of the deal w/ #KarenMcDougal —brokered in summer 2016— demonstrated that the payment was part of a #conspiracy to #influence that year’s #election.
Pecker said that McDougal’s payment was disguised as a contract for services, to avoid violating #CampaignFinance#laws.
#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 leading the #CrossExamination of #Pecker, is trying to drive home the idea that The #NationalEnquirer recycled news from other publications. It is seemingly an effort by Bove to show that Pecker wasn't moving mountains to find damaging info about Trump's Republican opponents during the 2016 presidential race.
#Trump is sitting at the defense table w/ his eyes shut as Pecker testifies.
Even though #Pecker knew the story was false, he paid $30k for it. He previously testified that he thought it would have been an embarrassment to the #TrumpCampaign. But #Bove is trying to get Pecker to agree that he instead paid for the story to avoid losing it to another publication.
#Bove is making an important point right now about an agreement that The #NationalEnquirer made w/ #KarenMcDougal, the fmr Playboy model whose story about an affair w/ #Trump the tabloid purchased & sought to bury. Prosecutors had tried to suggest that the agreement - which included a number of different benefits for McDougal - was made to disguise a $150k #HushMoney payment.
Bove is pointing out that McDougal actually did receive the benefits of the agreement.
#Bove tries to emphasize that #KarenMcDougal's primary focus was not cash, but the desire to restart her career.
#Pecker gets confused for a moment, but eventually agrees that McDougal was focused on her career. This is not an earth-shattering point, but, if the jury is able to follow it, it helps pick away at the prosecution's argument about this agreement.
#Pecker doesn't want to say that he was being misleading, but #Bove is hitting on a contradiction: Either Pecker misled #MichaelCohen, or the legal agreement was in fact "bulletproof" & thus not unlawful.
of course it doesn’t really matter because the charges have nothing to do w/the McDougal agreement, it’s discussion is purely background.
The jury & judge are back in the courtroom after midmorning break, David #Pecker is on the stand & his #CrossExamination is now resuming.
#Bove is back on cross, #Blanche, another defense lawyer, sits in Bove’s empty seat. Blanche seems intent on flanking #Trump as much as possible.
(Maybe to prod him awake before he starts to drool)
#Bove has been trying to get him to admit that his testimony contradicted what his attys told the state in 2019. The statement in question concerns the Trump Tower meeting in 2015, in which Pecker agreed to help #CatchAndKill negative stories about #Trump.
Bove said Pecker’s lawyer had told state prosecutors that it was inaccurate that Pecker had agreed, at that meeting, to suppress the stories on Trump's behalf.
#Pecker says he didn’t want The #NationalEnquirer associated w/a porn star [puhlease, what it might soil their stellar journalistic reputation?], meaning #StormyDaniels, because one of the tabloid's biggest distributors was Walmart, where a lot of families shop.
#Steinglass has seemed at ease during this direct examination of #Pecker. He is the most recent addition to this prosecution team but he is a veteran prosecutor at the Manhattan DA's office. He previously led the effort to convict the #TrumpOrganization in 2022 & also secured a conviction against 2 #ProudBoys#extremists for a violent brawl in 2019.
The #jury seems rapt as the Daniels tale starts to unspool.
As #Pecker testifies about conversations he & #MichaelCohen had about Daniels, he keeps his eyes glued to the exhibit & to the prosecutors. Reportedly he has not glanced at Trump once.
#Pecker, before a tense & focused courtroom, is recounting Trump calling him directly 3 days before that year’s #election day, 1 day after the WSJ article was published.
He was “very upset, saying how could this happen, I thought you had this under control, either you or one of your people have leaked the story," Pecker says.
"I wanted to protect my company, I wanted to protect myself & I wanted also to protect Donald Trump,” Pecker testifies.
#Pecker reiterates the importance of keeping #KarenMcDougal's story quiet, in a comment that relates directly to the prosecution's argument that he & #Trump conspired to aid his #election.
#Pecker is now describing a post-election meeting he had w/ #MichaelCohen at #Trump Tower. Pecker said Cohen told him he had not been reimbursed for his payment to #StormyDaniels. Cohen, who also wanted to be paid a bonus for the year, asked Pecker “if I [Pecker] would talk to the boss on his behalf.”
One of #Trump's hallmarks, even before he became president, was his tendency to treat everyone other than himself as not just beneath him [#narcissist] but unworthy of distinction & therefore equal in their subservience.
Meaning, he did not differentiate between the Director of the #FBI & the head of a supermarket #tabloid. In his mind they were just people who he thought owed him.
I’m back. #BabySquirrel Ramone is totes fine, he’s just getting — well squirrelly 🤷🏼♀️ — so he’s currently in old purse the size of a deck of cards, lined w/old fleece & slung around my neck.
this is where we are now:
“If yer doin stuff, I want to do stuff too.”
It’s a fair complaint. I’m not his superior, just the safety belt in our scenario.