Trump lawyer trying to create distance between Pecker and Stormy Daniels payoff
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The court is now taking a short break. But before it did, Bove cross-examined Pecker about Stormy Daniels, the adult film actor who is a prominent player in this case.
Bove is trying to create distance between Pecker and the Daniels payoff, which would again potentially undermine a conspiracy.
Pecker confirmed that he’d had a phone call from Howard in which he learned about Daniels’ account.
“You told Mr Howard that you wanted no involvement with the story, is that correct?” Bove asked.
“That’s correct,” Pecker replied.
“You did not consider Stormy Daniels’ story to be part of any agreement you had in August 2015?” was Bove’s next question. “That’s right,” Pecker replied. Bove then hammered his point: ”You wanted nothing to do with it.”
“That’s right,” Pecker said.
Key events
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To further emphasise that the Pecker’s handling of McDougal was not business as usual, Steinglass asked whether a woman’s story about an affair with a married candidate would do well.
“That would have been kind of like National Enquirer gold?” Pecker said yes. But, Steinglass continued, “At the time you had entered into that agreement [with McDougal], you had zero intention of publishing that story?” And, he pressed, “Despite the fact that publishing it would help your bottom line, you killed it to help the candidate, Donald Trump?”
“Uh, yes,” Pecker said.
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Steinglass also pressed: “What was your understanding about the part of the agreement that involved money?”
“My understanding is, those stories that come up, I would speak to Michael Cohen, and tell him that these are the stories that are going to be for sale that if we don’t buy them, somebody else will, and that Michael Cohen would buy them or make sure that they don’t ever get published. That was my understanding from that meeting,” Pecker said.
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On redirect, Steinglass is working doggedly to show that Pecker’s work to publish stories on Trump’s opponents was not business as usual, as Bove might suggest.
Pecker, under questioning, admitted that the payouts to women who had accused Arnold Schwarzenegger of misconduct around his California gubernatorial campaign were paid anywhere from $500 to $20,000.
Steinglass’s point of eliciting this testimony was to show that payouts were rarely, if ever, the more-than-$100,000 sums paid to McDougal and Daniels. Steinglass asked whether Pecker had ever let a candidate drive and edit coverage. “Uh, no,” he said.
The court is now on break.
Donald Trump has left the courtroom.
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Steinglass grilled Pecker about the federal non-prosecution agreement, where he had outlined the conspiracy while meeting with prosecutors.
Steinglass asked about the fifth paragraph of this non-prosecution agreement, which said that the “principle purpose” of the deal between Pecker’s company AMI and Karen McDougal, who alleged an affair with Trump, was to prevent her account from surfacing as he ran for president.
Steinglass asked Pecker: Was his purpose in locking down rights to McDougal’s story to influence the election?
Pecker said yes. Were other perks in McDougal’s agreement – such as promises to put her on the tabloid’s cover – actual benefits, or to hide the true purpose of the payments?
“It was included in the contract, basically as a disguise,” Pecker said.
Trump attorney finishes cross-examination of David Pecker, prosecution now asking questions
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Donald Trump’s attorney Emil Bove has wrapped up his cross-examination of David Pecker, the former publisher of the National Enquirer tabloid.
Bove’s questions appeared intended to undermine the prosecution’s allegation of a conspiracy by Trump, and to undermine the credibility of its witnesses.
Now Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg’s team gets a second chance to question its witness Pecker. Attorney Joshua Steinglass is representing the prosecution in this round of questioning, which is known as “recross”.
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Bove has been drilling down into the non-prosecution agreement, which was brokered after Pecker met with federal authorities and told them about the August 2015 meeting with Donald Trump and his attorney Michael Cohen, and the scheme’s machinations.
Bove asked Pecker whether, during a meeting with the Manhattan district attorney, his lawyers took issue with the accuracy of the agreement.
Pecker pushed back and said that concern over accuracy was insignificant, involving the use of the word purchase and sell which, in his view, were interchangeable. Pecker explained that in this context, sell and purchase both referred to snatching stories off the market.
The defense also tried to ask Pecker more about Cohen. Was there a time that Cohen claimed, falsely, that Trump had then-US attorney general Jeff Sessions “in his pocket”?
“Based on your experience, Michael Cohen was prone to exaggeration?” Bove asked. Pecker said that was the case.
Bove appears to be using Pecker’s testimony to pick apart the credibility of Cohen, a former consigliere to Trump who is expected to testify at some point in the trial.
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Bove has grilled Pecker about the non-prosecution agreement between AMI and federal prosecutors reached in September 2018. Before that month, Pecker was trying to sell the National Enquirer to Hudson News.
“In addition to the unpleasantness of sitting with the FBI, that put some pressure on the negotiations,” Bove intimated of Pecker’s discussions with federal authorities. “It would add on to the stress of the transaction?” Bove also asked: would the federal investigation have to wrap before the National Enquirer could be sold?
The implication, of course, is that Pecker might have been a little bit hasty in ascribing so much responsibility to Cohen and Trump in his chats with the feds. Bove’s line of questioning is implying that AMI entered into a non-prosecution agreement under duress – undermining Pecker’s statements to authorities that the company was involved with the payoff scheme.
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Former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker remains on the witness stand, and is being cross-examined by Emil Bove, who represents Donald Trump.
Once Bove wraps up, prosecutors from Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg’s team will get another chance at questioning Pecker.
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The trial has now resumed.
Trump lawyer trying to create distance between Pecker and Stormy Daniels payoff
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The court is now taking a short break. But before it did, Bove cross-examined Pecker about Stormy Daniels, the adult film actor who is a prominent player in this case.
Bove is trying to create distance between Pecker and the Daniels payoff, which would again potentially undermine a conspiracy.
Pecker confirmed that he’d had a phone call from Howard in which he learned about Daniels’ account.
“You told Mr Howard that you wanted no involvement with the story, is that correct?” Bove asked.
“That’s correct,” Pecker replied.
“You did not consider Stormy Daniels’ story to be part of any agreement you had in August 2015?” was Bove’s next question. “That’s right,” Pecker replied. Bove then hammered his point: ”You wanted nothing to do with it.”
“That’s right,” Pecker said.
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Bove has been asking about Keith Davidson, McDougal’s and adult film actor Stormy Daniels’ former attorney, and his relationship with Dylan Howard, the National Enquirer’s editor-in-chief at the time of the alleged scheme.
Pecker confirmed to Bove that Davidson was a “major source” for Howard.
“He was also friends with Cohen, correct?” Bove asked. Pecker again said yes.
But “you didn’t learn about the Cohen-Davidson connection” until AMI brokered a non-prosecution agreement with federal prosecutors in September 2018 – about one month after Cohen pleaded guilty to various crimes, including charges related to campaign contributions. Pecker said that was correct.
“And you don’t know what Cohen and Davidson were doing on the side, do you?” Pecker said he did not.
It seems that Bove is trying to downplay to jurors Pecker’s role in any purported conspiracy. By suggesting that Cohen and Davidson engaged in backroom dealing, this seems to sap Pecker of his power to control the narrative by controlling people’s stories. And if Pecker didn’t hold the cards because of any surreptitious discussions, his potential to influence the election seems less likely.
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Bove also tried to undermine any idea that Trump had reason to be concerned about McDougal.
He asked Pecker about Trump’s call to his office sometime after word of McDougal’s story.
Pecker told Trump he didn’t think it was true that a Mexican media group had offered to buy the account of an alleged affair for $8m.
“As you sit here today, do you remember during that conversation, you said to President Trump: ‘It is my understanding that she doesn’t want her story published’?”
“Yes, I did, I remember saying that,” Pecker said.
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Back in the courtroom, Bove tried to undermine the notion that McDougal represented a threat to Trump’s reputation.
If she didn’t constitute an actual problem, then giving her money wasn’t meant to influence the election, Bove seems to suggest.
“President Trump did not pay you any money related to Karen McDougal?” Bove asked. “No,” replied Pecker.
“When you first heard about this story, you understood that Ms McDougal did not want to publish it?”
“Yes.”
“She did not want to?” Bove asked.
“She did not want to,” Pecker replied.
Biden makes surprise visit to Manhattan as Trump sits in court
Joe Biden just made an unscheduled stop in midtown Manhattan, about four miles from the courthouse where his rival Donald Trump is on trial.
Biden’s motorcade pulled into Sirius XM’s studios for a live interview with Howard Stern, a former shock jock who has in recent years adopted a more sober style.
Biden arrived in the city yesterday after attending a campaign event in the suburbs. He’s scheduled to return to the White House this afternoon. The president has said little about Trump’s four criminal cases, including the charges related to falsifying business documents brought against him by the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg.
Biden does not do very many interviews or press conferences compared with his predecessors. He is also locked in what is expected to be a tight re-election race against Trump, who regularly interacts with the press. The two candidates will face off at ballot boxes nationwide in November.
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Bove then asked whether “it was standard operating procedure” for the National Enquirer to repackage news in the public domain.
He pointed to the tabloid’s coverage of medical malpractice suits against Ben Carson, a rival Republican presidential candidate in 2016.
“In May 2015, long before any articles on this [National Enquirer] page, the Guardian had covered this issue?” Bove noted that the Guardian’s article referenced seven malpractice claims against Carson before the National Enquirer published content on Carson’s scorecard as a physician.
The point of Bove’s questioning here might be to show that Pecker wasn’t going out of his way to publish content that helped Trump’s presidential aspiration, but rather that it was just a good business practice. By discussing the regurgitative process of using others’ content for the scandal sheet, Bove is trying to undermine the strength of any alleged conspiracy.
Trump lawyer questions David Pecker on motive for running Clinton stories
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Bove’s line of questioning is probing whether Pecker determined content because of a desire to help Trump – such as damaging articles about his opponents – or because it was beneficial to him directly, and asking about just how much work he actually put into these efforts.
“Let’s talk a little about what was said during the August 2015 meeting – you said on your direct that there was discussion of Bill and Hillary Clinton, correct?”
“Yes,” said Pecker, who testified that the Enquirer ran negative stories about the Clintons.
Bove pressed: were these negative articles running before the meeting?
“That’s correct,” Pecker said.
“And that’s because you’d made a business decision that it was good for the National Enquirer to run those stories, correct?” Bove asked.
“Yes,” Pecker replied.
“And so before the August 2015 meeting, you had decided that it made sense for the business of AMI to run articles about Bill and Hillary Clinton?”
“Yes,” Pecker said.
“And those articles were negative?”
“Yes.”
“Was running those beneficial for AMI?”
Pecker again: yes.
“There wasn’t much new content in those stories, was there?” Bove asked.
“I would have to read those stories to answer that question.”