Trump hush money trial day 7 highlights: David Pecker cross-examination begins

The judge scheduled a hearing for Wednesday on prosecutors’ latest claims that Trump violated the gag order, but it’s unclear if Trump will need to attend. His campaign has already scheduled back-to-back rallies that day in Wisconsin and Michigan.

Defense attorney Emil Bove grilled Pecker on his recollection of specific dates and meetings, an apparent effort to underscore the difficulty of recalling details relevant to the years-old allegations against Trump.

After noting Pecker had mistakenly told a grand jury the wrong week that Trump was in New York City, Bove suggested: “There are times that there are gaps in your memory that you have to fill in with what you assume happened based on other events.”

Pecker rejected that premise. He later told Bove he’d met with Manhattan prosecutors between three and five times since the start of the year, as recently as a few weeks ago. He said his testimony was based on his “best recollection of the time.”

Bove’s questioning also shed light on the origins of the term “catch-and-kill,” at least as it relates to Trump’s case.

“Before this investigation started, you had never heard the phrase ‘catch-and-kill,’ isn’t that correct?” Bove asked.

“Yes,” Pecker answered.

“The first time you heard the phrase, you heard it from a prosecutor,” Bove asked.

“That’s correct,” Pecker said.

Trump’s lawyers are getting their first chance to question a witness.

Defense attorney Emil Bove opened his cross-examination of Pecker by noting that he managed American Media Inc. to make money and asking about what Pecker has described as its “checkbook journalism.”

Pecker acknowledged that during his tenure, the tabloid and magazine publisher printed only about half the stories it bought — a fact the defense appears to be eliciting in order to suggest there was nothing unusual or criminal about the “catch and kill” operations involving claims about Trump.

Prosecutors wrapped up their questioning of Pecker by asking whether he bears Trump any ill will.

“On the contrary,” he said, “I felt that Donald Trump was my mentor. He helped me throughout my career.”

Although they haven’t spoken since the FBI began investigating the hush money arrangements several years ago — Pecker said he thought it would be inappropriate for them to communicate, given the probe — “I still consider him a friend,” Pecker said.

Trump looked on stoically as Pecker said so.

The silver-haired, mustachioed Pecker appeared at ease on his third day on the witness stand Thursday, calmly bringing to life the machinations he says were involved in identifying and burying stories on Trump’s behalf.

He vividly recounted conversations he says he had with Trump and the former president’s one-time lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen. He recalled meetings at Trump Tower and a dinner at the White House.

He shed light on the inner workings of the National Enquirer and the supermarket tabloid industry — and its use of “checkbook journalism” and “catch-and-kill” tactics — and the frantic race to pay off Stormy Daniels in the wake of the release of Trump’s infamous “Access Hollywood” tape.

Many of the details were previously known, but they’d been relegated to black-and-white in court papers and news articles. At Trump’s trial they have a narrator — a grandfatherly figure who made his living in the world of celebrity gossip.

The ex-publisher divided his focus between the jury and the prosecutor questioning him. Jurors looked on, often with rapt attention.

Steinglass, the prosecutor, took Pecker through American Media Inc.’s 2018 non-prosecution agreement with federal authorities.

Federal prosecutors agreed not to prosecute AMI in exchange for its cooperation in a campaign finance investigation that led to Cohen’s guilty plea and prison sentence that same year.

The Federal Election Commission fined the company $187,500, deeming the McDougal deal as a “prohibited corporate in-kind contribution.”

Asked who was the unnamed presidential candidate mentioned in the document, Pecker said, “Donald Trump.”

Trump was furious when McDougal gave an interview to CNN’s Anderson Cooper in March 2018, Pecker testified.

“I thought you had and we had an agreement with Karen McDougal that she can’t give any interviews or be on any TV channels,” Trump told Pecker by phone, the former National Enquirer publisher said in court.

Pecker said he explained to the then-president that the agreement had been changed to allow her to speak to the media after a November 2016 Wall Street Journal article about the tabloid’s $150,000 payout to McDougal.

“Mr. Trump got very aggravated when he heard that I amended it, and he couldn’t understand why,” Pecker told jurors.

Pecker testified that Trump invited him to a White House dinner in July 2017 to thank him for helping the campaign — and asked for an update on McDougal at the event.

The ex-publisher said Trump encouraged him to bring anyone he wanted, recounting that the then-president told him, “it’s your dinner.”

Pecker testified that he and Howard, the then-National Enquirer editor, as well as some of his other business associates, posed for photos with Trump in the Oval Office. Pecker said others at the dinner included Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner and press adviser Sean Spicer.

“How’s Karen doing?” he recalled Trump saying as they walked past the Rose Garden from the Oval Office to the dining room.

“I said she’s doing well, she’s quiet, everything’s going good,” Pecker testified.

Two Secret Service agents sat in the first row of the courtroom gallery directly behind Trump.

Ten court officers were positioned around the room, peering at reporters in the gallery.

Jurors continue to mostly look directly ahead, not making eye contact with Trump, as they passed the defense table in and out of the courtroom.

The former publisher of the National Enquirer did not look at Trump while walking by him.

Trump waved his fist as he returned to the courtroom after lunch but did not respond to a shouted question about the U.S. Supreme Court.

Pecker recalled going to another meeting with Trump on Jan. 6, 2017 — about two weeks before his inauguration — where he and the then president-elect discussed McDougal.

Pecker said he was brought into Trump’s office just as Trump was ending a meeting with then-FBI Director James Comey, press adviser Sean Spicer, then-GOP chair Reince Prebius and future Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who were updating Trump on a shooting that day at the Fort Lauderdale airport.

As Pecker recalled it, Trump introduced him to the group of aides as the National Enquirer owner and joked: “He probably knows more than anyone in this room.”

After dismissing the aides, Trump asked the former tabloid publisher for an update on “our girl,” meaning McDougal, according to Pecker.

Pecker said he reassured Trump that McDougal was keeping quiet, and Trump thanked him for handling the matters with McDougal and Dino Sajudin, the former doorman at one of Trump’s buildings who was also paid for his claims.

“He said that the stories were very embarrassing,” Pecker recalled.

In late 2016, Pecker says he was summoned to Cohen’s office in Trump Tower to discuss concerns about damaging material about Trump that may have been left over in the National Enquirer’s boxes.

Cohen also complained about not getting a bonus from Trump and suggested that he’d paid off Stormy Daniels with his own personal funds, according to Pecker.

During that conversation, Trump entered the room, Pecker said. Cohen then falsely told Trump that he’d personally reviewed the boxes for damaging information, according to Pecker. On their way out, Pecker let Trump know Cohen was worried about his bonus, adding that he believed Cohen “would throw himself in front of a bus for you.”

Pecker then recalled Trump’s response: “He said, ‘Don’t worry about him. I’ll take care of him.’”

Pecker recalled an irate Trump calling him a day after The Wall Street Journal published an article on the eve of the 2016 election.

The article broke the news of the National Enquirer’s $150,000 payment to McDougal for the rights to the former Playboy model’s story claiming an affair with Trump.

“Donald Trump was very upset, saying ‘how could this happen? I thought you had this under control. Either you or one of your people leaked the story,’” Pecker testified.

He said he told Trump a small number of people at the Enquirer knew of the deal and he speculated to Trump that perhaps McDougal or someone connected with her had tipped off the Journal.

The Journal ran its story on Nov. 4, 2016, just four days before the election. The next day, Pecker testified, Cohen texted him saying “the boss” wanted to speak to him. Trump then called him.

“Our call ended very abruptly. He didn’t say goodbye, which was very unusual,” Pecker testified.

Pecker admitted that AMI’s response to the Journal that the company had “not paid people to kill damaging stories about Mr. Trump” was a lie.

“I wanted to protect my company, I wanted to protect myself, and I wanted also to protect Donald Trump,” Pecker explained on the witness stand.

On the stand, Pecker recalled the night after the public learned of the infamous 2005 “Access Hollywood” tape in which Trump discusses grabbing women sexually without asking permission, when then-editor Dylan Howard called with an urgent matter.

Howard said he’d heard from Daniels’ representatives that she was trying to sell her story and the tabloid could acquire it for $120,000 if it decided right away, Pecker told jurors.

Pecker said he put his foot down, noting the magazine was already $180,000 in the hole for Trump-related catch-and-kill transactions.

“I said we already paid $30,000 to the doorman, we already paid $150,000 to Karen McDougal,” Pecker recalled. “I am not a bank and we are not paying out any further disbursements or monies.”

At the same time, Pecker said he told former Trump attorney and fixer Michael Cohen that he should buy the story and “take it off the market” to avoid it getting out.

In the wake of the release of the infamous Access Hollywood tape, members of Trump’s team were working to get a years-old story removed from Radar Online, a gossip website, featuring a different clip of Trump discussing women, according to Pecker.

The piece in question, which described Trump as a “Playboy Man,” was first posted in 2008, before AMI purchased Radar. But after Cohen alerted Pecker and then-editor Dylan Howard to the post, they agreed to delete it immediately.

“He was following my instructions to remove the posting from the Radar page,” Pecker said of Howard.

The email chain was then forwarded to Trump’s campaign spokesperson Hope Hicks.

Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass is beginning to ask Pecker about porn actor Stormy Daniels and her claim of a 2006 sexual encounter with Trump. The former president denies it happened.

While jurors were on a break, both sides debated disputed exhibits prosecutors want jurors to see.

Some of the disputed evidence, which Judge Merchan is keeping out of the trial for now, involved text messages then-National Enquirer editor Dylan Howard exchanged with a relative around the time of Trump’s 2016 election.

“At least if he wins, I’ll be pardoned for electoral fraud,” Howard said in one of the messages, which was read aloud in court by a prosecutor.

In another message, Howard informed his relative that Trump has “just been named president elect.”
The relative’s response — “Oh dear” — elicited laughter from the gallery when it was read in the courtroom.

The messages were not shown in court.

Trump’s lawyers argued the messages were hearsay, not business records, and couldn’t be used as evidence.

The jury has now returned to hear more from Pecker.

Pecker testified that he used an outside firm to create the invoice for Cohen to purchase the rights to McDougal’s story — a deal that was never consummated — in order to keep the transaction off his company’s financial logs, fearing scrutiny from his staff.

“I believed that payment would raise a lot of questions and issues and be communicated to the rest of the editors, which is something I didn’t want to happen,” Pecker said.

Correction: An earlier version of this item incorrectly said the invoice was for payments to McDougal. It was actually for reimbursement payments to AMI from Cohen in a deal that was not consummated.

Amid discussions of reimbursing American Media for the McDougal payout, Cohen also requested all the material the National Enquirer had gathered on Trump over the years, Pecker told jurors.

He said he told Cohen there were boxes full of old news articles and files, and Cohen insisted he wanted them nonetheless.

“He said that the boss said that if I (Pecker) get hit by a bus, or if the company was sold, he did not want someone else to potentially publish those stories,” Pecker recalled.

Pecker says he believes Trump was aware of the contract with McDougal.

Asked by a prosecutor if he knew if anyone other than Cohen was aware of the National Enquirer’s contract with McDougal, Pecker said: “I believe that Donald Trump did.”

The ex-publisher answered after the judge overruled the defense’s objection to the question, which was then read back by a court reporter before Pecker responded.

Based on his experience with Schwarzenegger, Pecker said he “wanted to be comfortable that the agreement that we were going to prepare for Karen McDougal met all the obligations with respect to a campaign contribution.”

“I called Michael Cohen and I told him that we finalized an agreement with Karen McDougal, the contract was bullet proof and we consulted with a campaign attorney,” Pecker added.

McDougal’s contract gave American Media Inc., which owned the National Enquirer and several fitness magazines, exclusive rights to McDougal’s story on any relationship with a married man.

Pecker said that clause was specifically about Trump.
The contact said McDougal would have fitness and aging-related columns and blog posts in various American Media magazines and sites, but Pecker said that provision was really just a cover story — and not the type that appears on a magazine. He said it was meant to “validate” the $150,000 she was getting.

“With respect to campaign laws, I wanted to have the contract be a record that stipulates” services that she would provide, as a basis for the payment, Pecker explained. But the real purpose of the contract was to buy and lock up her claim about a 2006-2007 Trump affair, which the former president says never happened.

Pecker went on to say that the deal was intended to keep McDougal’s story from becoming public and potentially influencing the election.

Pecker testified he was leery of paying McDougal on Trump’s behalf because of trouble he ran into with an earlier “catch-and-kill” arrangement benefiting Arnold Schwarzenegger during the movie star’s run for governor of California in 2003.

Schwarzenegger had been a prominent figure in several fitness magazines Pecker’s company was acquiring, appearing on their covers more than 70 times and acting as an editor at large.

After Schwarzenegger announced his run for governor, “a number of women called up the National Enquirer” with stories about Schwarzenegger. The deal “I had was that I would call him and advise him of any stories that were out there, and I ended up buying them for a period of time.”

Pecker said he didn’t publish the stories. One of the women ended up going to the Los Angeles Times, which did run a story. Asked for comment, Pecker recounted Schwarzenegger telling reporters: “Ask David Pecker.”

Cohen has for months has made an outpouring of posts about the case on social media but Wednesday night declared in a post on X that he’ll stay quiet until after he testifies.

Cohen said he’ll also refrain from commenting on his podcast until after his trial testimony and said, “See you all in a month (or more).”

The former president is listening intently as Pecker, his longtime friend, testifies in vivid detail about the National Enquirer’s efforts to buy and kill unflattering stories – related to both Trump and other celebrities, including Arnold Schwarzenegger.

He has passed along notes to the two attorneys on either side of him, Todd Blanche and Emil Bove.

Pecker testified that McDougal demanded $150,000 — plus writing assignments and other business opportunities — for the rights to her story. But according to Pecker, it wasn’t clear who was going to pay for it.

Pecker said Cohen initially asked him to front the costs: “I said, ‘Michael, why should I pay? I just paid $30,000 for the doorman story. Now you’re asking me to pay $150,000 for the Karen story, plus all of these other additional items that she wants to do.’”

When asked how he would be reimbursed, Pecker says Cohen assured him: “Don’t worry about it. I’m your friend. The boss will take care of it.”

In a moment that bespeaks the sometimes plodding nature of court testimony, prosecutor Joshua Steinglass and Pecker went through some Q-and-A about Daylight Saving Time versus standard time. Why? It’s related to the timing of an email that’s being introduced.

After working with former Trump lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen for years, Pecker said he came to believe Cohen did not have authority to spend Trump Organization’s funds without high-level approval.

“Every time that we went out to lunch I always paid, he never paid,” Pecker noted.

Pecker recalled getting a telephone call from Trump during the tabloid’s pursuit of former Playboy model Karen McDougal’s claims of an extramarital affair with Trump.

“When I got on the phone, Mr. Trump said to me, ‘I spoke to Michael. Karen is a nice girl. Is it true that a Mexican group is looking to buy her story for $8 million?’ I said, ‘I absolutely don’t believe there’s a Mexican group out there looking to buy her story for $8 million.’”

Trump then asked Pecker what he should do, the ex-publisher said. Pecker testified he told Trump, “I think you should buy the story” and keep it quiet.

“I believed the story was true,” Pecker explained. “I thought it would be very embarrassing to himself and to his campaign.”

While awaiting a ruling on whether Trump will be held in contempt of court and possibly fined over alleged violations of a gag order, prosecutors asked the judge to consider whether he violated it four more times with remarks he made outside court this week.

Among others, prosecutor Christopher Conroy flagged comments Trump made just Thursday morning at an early-morning press event about witness David Pecker, who is continuing to testify today.

Trump said the former National Enquirer publisher has “been very nice,” which Conroy characterized as “a message to Pecker: be nice.” He argued that it’s also a message to other potential witnesses that Trump has a platform and will use it to attack them if they aren’t kind to him.

The judge hasn’t immediately ruled on Conroy’s request to hold Trump in contempt and levy “appropriate sanctions.”

The former president has walked to the defense table where he stood briefly and whispered into lawyer Todd Blanche’s ear before sitting down.

Before entering court, he addressed reporters in the hallway. He began by speaking not about the trial but instead the economy, griping about gas prices and the latest economic numbers.

He again addresses the Supreme Court, which is hearing oral arguments today on whether he’s immune from prosecution in a case charging him with plotting to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

“I would have loved to have been there,” Trump said.

Trump’s motorcade has arrived at the courthouse in lower Manhattan.

After his morning event in midtown, the former president had returned to Trump Tower. He has now left again, headed in a motorcade to the courthouse in lower Manhattan.

Trump was dismissive when asked about prosecutors’ pushing the judge to hold him in contempt of violating a gag order in the case because of his social media posts.

“Oh, I have no idea” Trump said when asked if he would pay the $1,000 fine for each of 10 posts. He then said, “They’ve taken my constitutional right away with a gag order.”