The New York criminal hush money trial against former President Donald Trump resumed Friday with the cross-examination of David Pecker, the former publisher of the National Enquirer, as defense attorney Emil Bove attempted to dismantle the prosecution’s case.
Under questioning from Bove on Friday, Pecker acknowledged his tabloid had already been running negative articles about Hillary Clinton, who would become the Democratic nominee for president against Trump in 2016, before he agreed to help Trump suppress stories. Prosecutors want the 12-member jury to view Pecker’s conduct in running negative stories on Trump’s political opponents, while silencing negative press about the then-presidential candidate, as a unique pattern that proves Trump sought his services to influence the presidential election.
But Pecker admitted Friday that running negative stories about Trump’s political foes was a practice he engaged in well before a 2015 meeting with Trump and Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen, which the prosecution says marked the beginning of a “catch-and-kill” scheme to avoid “embarrassment” by the Trump 2016 campaign.
“Before the August 2015 meeting, the National Enquirer was already running negative articles about Bill and Hillary Clinton, right?” defense attorney Bove asked Pecker, according to press reports. Pecker responded, “Yes.”
Prosecutors objected after Bove asked Pecker if the practice was “mutually beneficial,” which trial Judge Juan Merchan allowed it to be sustained.
Bove also pointed out that negative articles Pecker’s publication ran about Trump’s Republican rivals in the primary race at the time, such as Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Dr. Ben Carson, relied on information that was recycled from other news outlets.
The defense attorney asked Pecker if recycling that material was “cost-efficient and made business sense,” which Pecker acknowledged was the case.
Pecker also affirmed that he would have run a fake story about a child Trump allegedly had with another woman out of wedlock if it turned out to be true, an effort that seemed to dispel prosecutors’ notion that Pecker was operating entirely for Trump’s personal gain.
The line of questioning by Trump’s attorney may seek to undermine prosecutors’ argument that Pecker’s deal with Trump to silence his bad press and elevate his opponents’ was unique.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has charged Trump with 34 counts under New York Penal Law Section 175.10, falsifying business records in the first degree, for an alleged effort to cover up a $130,000 payment to porn star Stormy Daniels after she threatened to come forward about an alleged affair with Trump, which he denies. Falsification alone is a misdemeanor under Section 175.05, but the district attorney, an elected Democrat, has boosted the charge to a felony by alleging Trump falsified the records with the “intent to commit another crime and aid and conceal the commission thereof.” Trump is not charged with any additional crimes, however, and has pleaded not guilty to the indictment.
Legal experts have largely described Bragg’s approach as an untested legal theory, and part of the defense’s strategy is to create the notion that the meetings with Trump, his ex-lawyer, and Pecker were run-of-the-mill negotiations that countless celebrities have engaged in in years past.
“As anticipated, Bove took great care to work through inconsistencies in Pecker’s testimony,” legal analyst and corporate general counsel Alton Harmon told the Washington Examiner.
Prosecutors this week sought to show Cohen and Pecker’s alleged “catch and kill” scheme was done with the intent of preventing the emergence of anything damaging or “embarrassing” to the then-candidate’s 2016 campaign.
Bove’s cross-examination has so far revealed Pecker made shady deals with other politicians and celebrities, ranging from Mark Wahlberg and Tiger Woods to Arnold Schwarzenegger when he ran for governor of California and Rahm Emanual while running for mayor Chicago.
Harmon said he believes Bove’s strategy was an attempt to “ensure the jury ends its Friday thinking that Pecker’s acts had nothing to do with election interference but were par for the course in the tabloid industry and were a part of AMI/National Enquirer’s ‘standard operating procedures.’”
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But the defense may have hit something of a snag in their approach Friday afternoon after Pecker admitted that out of the “hundreds of thousands” of nondisclosure agreements executed by his tabloid magazines, Trump was the only presidential candidate he ever helped out in such a manner.
“It’s the only one,” Pecker said Friday afternoon.
