ON MELANIA’S B’DAY, TRUMP TRYSTS AT TRIAL
Pecker and ex-prez gatekeeper wrap up testimony vs. Don
Donald Trump on Friday spent his wife’s 54th birthday at his Manhattan hush money trial listening to longtime confidantes shed light on his alleged extramarital liaisons and efforts to hide them from the American electorate.
Prosecutors crossed two witnesses off their list as the second week of Trump’s first criminal trial drew to a close, with former publisher of the National Enquirer David Pecker wrapping up after four days on the stand and Trump’s longtime executive assistant, Rhona Graff, providing brief but potentially pivotal testimony.
Graff, who gained a reputation as Trump’s gatekeeper during the 34 years she worked for his real estate empire and remained a point of contact after he won the White House, said she managed the calendar, contacts, and inbox of the notoriously email-averse Trump.
The Trump Organization vet confirmed contact details for both of the women involved in the case who claim Trump cheated on his wife with them — porn star Stormy Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal — were in the company’s computer system. Graff also testified she once saw Daniels at Trump’s self-named Fifth Ave. tower, assuming she was a possible contestant on “The Apprentice.”
“I have a vague recollection of seeing her in the reception area on the 26th floor,” Graff told prosecutor Susan Hoffinger.
Graff, who said she was being forced to testify under a subpoena, spoke fondly of her decades at his side and described Trump Tower as “a very stimulating, exciting, just fascinating place to be.”
“I never had the same day twice,” Graff said on cross-exam with Trump lawyer Susan Necheles.
“I think he was fair and a respectful boss to me.”
Trump stood when Graff finished, an apparent sign of respect he didn’t afford to all of the potential jurors surveyed at his trial last week. He shook her hand and said something inaudible to reporters in the courtroom gallery.
Before Graff was called as the prosecution’s second witness, jurors saw an at-times fiery cross-examination of Pecker by Team Trump.
Earlier this week, Pecker testified about brokering deals of $30,000 to a Trump Tower doorman and $150,000 to silence McDougal’s claims of a year-long affair with Trump when he was CEO of American Media, buying the lifetime rights to their stories to ensure they never got published. The longtime media exec, who’s known Trump since the 1980s, detailed his role in a scheme devised after Trump announced his candidacy in the summer of 2015 to suppress information that could hurt his chances with voters and publish hit jobs about his opponents.
Pecker said the president-elect twice acknowledged his efforts — telling the court a black and white photo of him and Trump taking a walk by the White House rose garden in January 2017 showed the president-elect thanking him for handling “the situation” with McDougal and a Trump Tower doorman, who sought to sell
a later-debunked story about Trump fathering an illegitimate love child.
On Friday, Trump lawyer Emil Bove sought to undermine the publisher’s credibility, pressing him about what the lawyer described as inconsistencies in his testimony and conversations with the feds in 2018. Bove said records showed Pecker told federal prosecutors Trump did not thank him.
“Was that another mistake?” the lawyer asked.
Pecker stayed firm.
“I know what the truth is,” he said.
Pecker received immunity from the Manhattan district attorney in exchange for his cooperation, as he did in Cohen’s 2018 case related to the hush money scheme in which AMI admitted to paying off Daniels and the doorman in a nonprosecution agreement.
Peppering Pecker with rapid-fire questions that mainly drew one-word answers, Bove sought to portray his “catch and kill” arrangement with Trump as a mere continuation of something he had been doing — and personally benefiting from — for decades, not a scheme to hide information from voters.
The lawyer ran through multiple celebrities the media exec this week testified he also sought to protect from unflattering stories while head of AMI: Arnold
Schwarzenegger, former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, golfer Tiger Woods, and actor Mark Wahlberg.
Later, on Assistant District Attorney Joshua Steinglass’s redirect, he asked Pecker if any of the “hundreds of thousands” of nondisclosure agreements he was involved in, except those with Trump, aided a presidential candidate. Pecker said no.
“Is it standard operating procedure to have a presidential campaign person weighing in on what terms of a contract ought to be amended?” Steinglass asked. “Uh, no,” Pecker said. Trump has pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts of falsification of business records, alleging he concealed reimbursement to Cohen for paying off Daniels after he won the election.
Prosecutors say the 2017 payments to Cohen capped a scheme born at an August 2015 meeting between Pecker, Trump, and Cohen at Trump Tower, where the supermarket tabloid publisher agreed to be the Trump campaign’s “eyes and ears,” and to flag anything that arose to Trump’s fixer. The defense has countered that Trump did nothing illegal and that his interactions with Pecker both fell within legal lines and were “standard practice” for political candidates.
Prosecutors called their third witness toward the end of the day’s proceedings, Gary Farro, who’s expected to continue when the trial resumes on Tuesday. Farro, who was Cohen’s banker, told jurors about dealing with Trump’s fixer as he sought to pay Daniels through a home equity line of credit.
The presumptive Republican front-runner in this year’s election began the day lamenting that he had to miss Melania Trump’s birthday to be at the trial. He ended it by challenging President Biden to a last-minute debate.
“He can do it anytime he wants, including tonight,” Trump said on his way out of court. “I’m ready. Here we are. I invited him to the courthouse.”
The director of Mayor Adams’ hate crimes prevention unit was fired from his post last week without being given a reason for his dismissal, and is now planning to take legal action claiming discrimination, the Daily News has learned.
Hassan Naveed, who has worked as executive director of the Office for the Prevention of Hate Crimes since October 2022, announced Wednesday on his LinkedIn page that he “officially left” the leadership post. On Friday, Naveed told The News he believes his dismissal is tied to the fact that he’s Muslim, and that he hired a lawyer with the intention of filing a claim.
“I’ve never had this level of disrespect of being sidelined like this,” he said Friday afternoon. “What I feel is that I have definitely been fired because I am Muslim. … I’ve done everything right in my career and then this happens.”
A City Hall spokesperson said the change was occurring at a critical time in New York.
“While hate crimes may be rising in major cities across the nation, the work of the Office for the Prevention of Hate Crimes is crucial to New York City now more than ever,” the spokesperson said.
“Following an analysis, it was determined that the important mission of this office should be led by someone who puts bringing hate crimes down first and themself second. We will not allow this unit to miss a single step at this critical juncture.”
Naveed’s exit is the latest in a string of departures that have become public over the last two weeks and comes at a fraught time for the administration, which is facing legal challenges on a variety of fronts.
Last week, Adams’ chief adviser Ingrid Lewis-Martin confirmed that the administration is seeking to replace its top lawyer, Sylvia Hinds-Radix, with Randy Mastro, a former official in Mayor Giuliani’s administration.
Dawn Pinnock, the head of the Department of Citywide Administrative Services, also recently announced she would be stepping down in June. And the administration is pushing out the head of the Civilian Complaint Review Board, Arva Rice, as well.
Naveed’s departure appears to be more abrupt. According to two sources familiar with the matter, Naveed worked a full day on April 16 and afterward was approached by a supervisor and told he’d been terminated.
Naveed was not given an explanation for his firing, according to the sources, but was told the decision came from “higher ups,” that he was an “at-will” employee and that there didn’t need to be a specific reason for his dismissal.
Deputy Mayor for Public Safety Phil Banks, who recently told Rice that the mayor wanted her to step down, oversees the Office of Hate Crime Prevention as part of his portfolio.
While being informed of his firing, Naveed was also told he’d failed to submit an annual hate crimes report in 2021, during former Mayor Bill de Blasio’s City Hall tenure.
According to the two sources, Naveed responded that was not the case and that he had emails showing he’d submitted the report on time. Naveed told The News on Friday he was just six months away from reaching the threshold to be able to collect a municipal pension after 10 years of public service.
“It has put me in an adverse personal financial position,” he said, adding that he fears he now may not be able to afford rent and will have to move in with family.
Two other sources familiar with the situation said Naveed’s dismissal is tied to a recent Ramadan event that was the object of protests. According to those sources, after protesters openly criticized Mayor Adams at the event, administration officials looked to Naveed to push back on their criticisms and found his response lacking.
Deborah Lauter, who served as the executive director of the hate crimes prevention office under de Blasio and hired Hassan as her deputy, said she was shocked to learn of Hassan’s ouster.
“I’m totally flummoxed by this,” she said. “He was my deputy for two years. He was just an outstanding city employee. He’s thoughtful, he’s charismatic, he understood city government from his previous jobs.”
She then voiced concern about the future of the hate crimes prevention office.
“It’s beyond sad. I just don’t understand why they would do this to such a competent person,” she said. “I’m very disappointed that he won’t be there to do the work, and I don’t know what the plan is for the office.”
Naveed previously served as a deputy executive director in the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice, which oversees the hate crimes unit. Before that, he served in the city’s Department of Investigation as part of its unit focused on the NYPD.