Ex-tabloid publisher testifies in Trump trial
Cites praise from president-elect for buying stories
NEW YORK — Days before Donald Trump became president in early 2017, a handful of advisers, officials, and allies descended on his office at Trump Tower: the FBI director, a future secretary of state, his soon-to-be chief of staff — and the publisher of The National Enquirer.
The publisher, David Pecker, may have seemed out of place, but he had just performed an indispensable and confidential service to the Trump campaign: He had paid off a Playboy model, Karen McDougal, who said she had an affair with Trump, and a doorman who had heard that Trump had fathered a child out of wedlock. The future president, triumphant, thanked Pecker for his service.
That remarkable scene was private until Thursday, when Pecker recounted it to jurors in Trump’s Manhattan criminal trial. He described in vivid detail how Trump laid bare their effort to buy and bury damaging stories that could have derailed Trump’s campaign — a plot at the center of the case.
“He said, ‘I want to thank you for handling the McDougal situation,’ and then he also said, ‘I wanted to thank you for the doorman situation,’” Pecker testified Thursday. “He was thanking me for buying them and for not publishing any of the stories and helping the way I did. He said that the stories could be very embarrassing.”
Trump also asked after McDougal: “How’s our girl?” Pecker said he replied, “She’s cool. She’s very quiet. No issues.”
Pecker’s testimony was a stunning moment in the first criminal trial of an American president. Coming on his third day on the stand, it underscored how Pecker’s support in 2016 has now come back to haunt Trump in 2024.
Pecker, who delivered hours of testimony Thursday, described how he had helped quash three scandalous stories about Trump, including by setting in motion a nondisclosure agreement with a pornographic film actress, Stormy Daniels. That payment is central to the prosecution’s case against Trump, and Pecker’s testimony illuminated the deal to a captivated jury.
The payment came about after Pecker relayed Daniels’s story to Trump’s lawyer and fixer at the time, Michael Cohen, and urged him to pay her off. Cohen ultimately did, to the tune of $130,000.
He warned Cohen that if he failed to keep Daniels quiet, Trump would be furious.
Pecker’s testimony, which kept many jurors rapt as Trump shifted and slumped in his chair, spoke to a central theme in the prosecution’s case. Pecker, prosecutors contend, joined a threeman conspiracy with Trump and Cohen, hatching a plot to hide damaging stories from the American people.
Pecker introduced the jury to the practice known as “catch and kill” — buying the rights to a story with no intention of publishing it — a dark art in the world of supermarket tabloids. The National Enquirer used the tactic to silence McDougal and the doorman.
He took jurors behind the scenes of the deal, detailing how he had bought McDougal’s story for $150,000 and disguised the payment as a deal for other services, including writing columns. Those supposed services, he acknowledged, were camouflage for an illegal donation to Trump’s campaign.
In a powerful moment for the prosecution, Pecker acknowledged a clear-cut motive for keeping the model’s story under wraps: protecting Trump’s chance of winning the White House.
“We didn’t want the story to embarrass Mr. Trump or embarrass or hurt the campaign,” Pecker testified.
He also acknowledged that it is unlawful for a corporation to spend money that way to influence the election, another pivotal moment in the early days of the trial.
Pecker explained to the jury that he had learned Daniels was looking to sell her story as Trump’s campaign was reeling from the publication of an “Access Hollywood” recording, in which Trump boasted of grabbing women by their genitals.
That tape, he said, “was very embarrassing, very damaging to the campaign.”
But he had already shelled out the $150,000 to McDougal, and he balked at paying Daniels, leaving it to Cohen to strike the $130,000 hush-money deal. “After paying out the doorman, after paying out Karen McDougal, we’re not paying out any more monies,” Pecker recalled telling Cohen.
The prosecutors, from the Manhattan district attorney’s office, accused Trump of falsifying business records when reimbursing Cohen for the $130,000 payment and charged the former president with 34 felonies — one for each check, ledger, and invoice related to the repayment.
Trump denies that he and Daniels had sex and has said he did nothing wrong. If convicted, he could receive probation or up to four years in prison.
Under cross-examination from a lawyer for Trump, the tabloid publisher acknowledged that it was a standard practice for his publication to buy stories as leverage for access and interviews with celebrities. He also admitted giving Trump a headsup about negative stories for years before he ran for president.
Under questioning from prosecutors, Pecker spent much of his time on the stand detailing the deal with McDougal, whose lawyer brought the story to The National Enquirer, which then vetted the account.
McDougal, he said, was happy to stay quiet.
“She said she didn’t want to be the next Monica Lewinsky,” he said.
Pecker alerted Cohen, who then pressed the tabloid to buy her story. When Pecker expressed concern about who would pay the $150,000 — noting that “this is a very, very large purchase” — Cohen reassured him. He said, “The boss will take care of it.”
FORMER ENQUIRER PUBLISHER
David Pecker described how he had helped quash three scandalous stories about Donald Trump in 2016.