The limits of an alleged “agreement among friends” that aimed to help one man win an election and a tabloid publisher sell papers were revealed during testimony in a lower Manhattan courtroom.
David Pecker, 72, the onetime CEO of the National Enquirer‘s parent company, American Media Inc., took the stand for the third time in the hush-money trial of former President Donald Trump, 77, on Thursday.
In the case, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, by way of his lieutenants, has put forward the theory that Trump, by way of his then-fixer Michael Cohen, 57, paid off adult film actress Stormy Daniels, 45, and then illegally covered up that payoff using business stationary, in order to forestall the release of a 2016 election eve revelation about an extramarital tryst that appeared likely to further degrade the candidate’s already-then-blanched standing with women voters.
Pecker’s Thursday testimony showed how bottling up Daniels’ claims came to be facilitated by Cohen — instead of being captured by the purported informal arrangement between Trump and his friend.
On Tuesday, Pecker testified that the agreement between himself and Trump was “mutually beneficial” because it helped the campaign climb in the polls against its rivals and helped the National Enquirer rack up more sales at grocery stores checkout lanes.
Meanwhile, the so-called “catch and kill” dynamic — wherein AMI would pay for exclusive rights to particularly damaging stories and then sit on them — was largely to Trump’s benefit, Pecker admitted, to prodding from Assistant District Attorney Joshua Steinglass.
On Thursday, the witness discussed efforts to quash a story being peddled by former Playboy model Karen McDougal that she had a nearly yearlong relationship with Trump. Pecker said he first told Trump to pay for the story and keep it under wraps. Trump, Pecker recalled in earlier testimony, recoiled from paying, according to a report by New York Daily News reporter Molly Crane-Newman.
During his latest time on the stand, Pecker said he allowed himself to be convinced by Cohen that if AMI paid for McDougal’s story, they would eventually be reimbursed by those in Trump’s orbit, according to a report by Just Security fellow Adam Klasfeld.
“Don’t worry. I’m your friend,” Pecker recalled being told by Trump’s fixer. “The boss will take care of it.”
In the end, McDougal was given a contract by AMI for $150,000 which served to more or less obfuscate “the true nature” of what she was being paid for, Pecker reportedly testified. Beyond just buying the lifetime rights to her story about the Trump affair, the paper would also putatively hire her as a fitness columnist and red carpet reporter.
Later, the witness said, he came to regret and abandon the would-be deal — which would have seen AMI transfer the rights to McDougal’s story to a Delaware-based entity created by Cohen, Resolution Consultants LLC for $125,000. Pecker reportedly testified that he estimated the value of McDougal’s columns at around $25,000.
“I’m not going forward,” Pecker again testified as to what he told Cohen. “It’s a bad idea, and I want you to rip up the agreement.”
This volte-face allegedly occurred in October 2016, the witness testified, leaving Trump’s then-right-hand-man “fuming.”
“He was very, very angry,” Pecker said. “Screaming basically.”
In response to breaking off the deal, the witness said Cohen told him: “The boss is going to be very angry at you.”
Later, Pecker reprised some version of that same phrase when the Daniels story threatened to leak out and upend Trump’s campaign.
The witness testified he was adamant and clear from the beginning that his publication would not have anything to do with Daniels.
“I don’t want the National Enquirer to be associated with a porn star,” Pecker said he told then-National Enquirer head Dylan Howard.
But, the publisher mused, he believed her story was true and someone or some people should buy it: Donald Trump and/or Michael Cohen.
To hear Pecker tell it, Cohen was “upset” and expressed anger that AMI was sitting out the Daniels catch-and-kill venture.
Still, he stuck to keeping his guns withdrawn.
“I am not paying for this story,” Pecker said he told Cohen. “If it gets out, I believe the boss is going to be very angry with you.”
The post ‘The boss is going to be very angry with you’: Ex-National Enquirer publisher testifies during Trump trial about turning the tables on Michael Cohen over Stormy Daniels payoff first appeared on Law & Crime.
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Author: Colin Kalmbacher
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