Published Thursday, April 25, 2024 | 9:01 p.m.
Updated Friday, April 26, 2024 | 8:48 a.m.
NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump's defense team in his hush money case sought Friday to undermine the testimony of the prosecution's lead witness and his account that a tabloid's practice of helping to bury embarrassing stories about Trump was part of a scheme to aid the Republican's 2016 campaign.
David Pecker, the former publisher of the National Enquirer, returned to the witness stand for a fourth day as defense attorneys tried to poke holes in his testimony about his tabloid's efforts to protect his old friend from potentially damaging stories using a catch-and-kill scheme.
Pecker's testimony is crucial for prosecutors, who allege the effort was a way to illegally influence the 2016 election. Under cross-examination, Trump's lawyers are trying to show that any dealings Trump had with Pecker were intended to protect Trump, his reputation and his family — not his campaign.
Pecker has testified that he hatched a plan with Trump and then-Trump attorney Michael Cohen in August 2015 for the National Enquirer to help Trump’s presidential campaign.
But, under questioning by Trump lawyer Emil Bove, Pecker acknowledged there was no mention at that meeting of the term “catch-and-kill,” which describes the practice of tabloids purchasing the rights to story so they never see the light of day. Nor was there discussion at the meeting of any “financial dimension,” such as the National Enquirer paying people on Trump’s behalf for the rights to their stories, Pecker said.
Bove also confronted Pecker with statements he made to federal prosecutors in 2018 that the defense lawyer said were “inconsistent” with the former publisher’s testimony earlier this week. Pecker previously testified that Trump thanked him during a White House visit in 2017 for his help burying two stories.
But according to notes cited by Bove in court, Pecker had previously told federal authorities that Trump did not express any gratitude to him during the meeting.
Pecker stuck to the story that that he gave in court. “The FBI notes that someone is writing down here could be wrong,” he said, adding: “I know what the truth is."
Pecker's cross-examination caps a consequential week in the criminal cases the former president faces as he vies to reclaim the White House in November.
At the same time jurors listened to testimony in Manhattan, the Supreme Court on Thursday signaled it was likely to reject Trump's sweeping claims that he is immune from prosecution in his 2020 election interference case in Washington. But the conservative-majority high court seemed inclined to limit when former presidents could be prosecuted — a ruling that could benefit Trump by delaying that trial, potentially until after the November election.
In New York — the first of Trump's four criminal cases to go to trial — the presumptive Republican presidential nominee faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in connection with hush money payments meant to stifle negative stories from surfacing in the final days of the 2016 campaign.
Trump denies any wrongdoing. Before entering the courtroom Friday, he told reporters he believes Thursday's proceedings went “very well” for the defense, adding that “the case should be over.”
Over several days on the witness stand, Pecker has described how he and the tabloid parlayed rumor-mongering into splashy stories that smeared Trump’s opponents and, just as crucially, leveraged his connections to suppress seamy stories about Trump.
The charges center on $130,000 in payments that Trump’s company made to his then-lawyer, Michael Cohen. He paid that sum on Trump’s behalf to keep porn actor Stormy Daniels from going public with her claims of a sexual encounter with Trump a decade earlier. Trump has denied the encounter ever happened.
Over several days on the witness stand, Pecker has described how he and the tabloid parlayed rumor-mongering into splashy stories that smeared Trump’s opponents and, just as crucially, leveraged his connections to suppress seamy stories about Trump.
Pecker recalled how an editor told him that Daniels' representative was trying to sell her story and that the tabloid could acquire it for $120,000. Pecker said he put his foot down, noting that the tabloid was already $180,000 in the hole for Trump-related catch-and-kill transactions. But, Pecker said, he told Cohen to buy the story himself to prevent Daniels from going public with her claim.
“I said to Michael, ‘My suggestion to you is that you should buy the story, and you should take it off the market because if you don’t and it gets out, I believe the boss will be very angry with you.’”
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Richer reported from Washington.
