The importance of this questioning cannot be overstated. Not only is the prosecutor, Joshua Steinglass, trying to establish the scheme itself – but by repeatedly asking David Pecker about his intent, and repeatedly prompting him to say the arrangement was to help Trump in the election, it bolsters their argument that the motive of the alleged hush-money scheme was to sway the 2016 race.
While this is a case claiming falsified business records, the prosecution contends that the motive behind this purportedly illicit record-keeping was to change the course of the election.
David Pecker is now going through the machinations of how this all worked.
He told his staffers: “I asked them to notify the West Coast bureau chief of the National Enquirer,” who was then instructed that “any stories that are out there that’s commenting about Donald Trump, commenting about his famiy, commenting about the election, whatever it might be, I want you to vet the stories, I want you to bring them to me, and then I said we’ll have to speak to Michael Cohen, you’ll call Michael Cohen, I’ll call him, we’ll tell him what the stories are.”
Pecker said he wanted to keep this arrangement under wraps. Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass asked, why? Pecker said:
I told him that we were going to try to help the campaign and to do that, I wanted to keep this as quiet as possible.
“Because if it came out that you were helping the campaign, it would kind of undermine the point?” Steinglass asked, prompting an objection that was ultimately sustained.
Prosector Joshua Steinglass asked David Pecker about negative stories on Bill and Hillary Clinton. Pecker said:
I was running the Hillary Clinton stories. I was running Hillary as an enabler for Bill Clinton in respect to all the womanizing, and [it] was easy for me to say I was gong to continue running those type of stories for the National Enquirer.
Did he think it would help Trump’s campaign?
I thought it was a mutual benefit – it would help his campaign, it would help me.
Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass asked specifically, why David Pecker said he told Trump he would notify Michael Cohen if he heard “anything women selling stories”.
“In a presidential campaign, I was the person that thought that there would be a lot of women would come out to try to sell their stories because Mr Trump was well known as the most eligible bachelor and dated the most beautiful women,” Pecker said.
And it was clear that based on my past experience that when someone is running for a public office like this, it is very common for these women to call up a magazine like the National Enquirer to try to sell their stories. Or, I would hear it in the marketplace, [through] other sources, that stories were being marketed.
Pecker testifies he told Trump he would be campaign's 'eyes and ears'
Victoria Bekiempis
Fast forward to August 2015. Did there come a time when you attended a meeting in Trump Tower? Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass asked. David Pecker responded in the affirmative.
Who was present for that meeting? “Donald Trump, Michael Cohen, and Hope Hicks,”Pecker said, noting that Hicks was in and out. Pecker then ran through how this happened.
I received a call from Michael Cohen telling me The Boss wanted to see me. When I spoke to Michael Cohen, that’s how he would refer to Donald Trump, as the boss.
“Most of the time when I received a call from Michael Cohen, he wanted something,” Pecker reflected, saying he didn’t know what it was before he got there.
At that meeting, Donald, Donald Trump, and Michael, they asked me what can I do – and what my magazines could do – to help the campaign. So, thinking about it, as I did previously, I said what I would do is I would run or publish positive stories about Mr Trump and I would publish negative stories about his opponents and I said that I would also be the eyes and ears because I know that the Trump organization had a very small staff.
And then I said that anything I hear in the marketplace if I hear anything negative about yourself, or if I hear anything about women selling stories, I would notify Michael Cohen as I did over the last several years, I would notify Michael Cohen and then he would be able to [have them] killed in another magazine or have them not be published or somebody would have to purchase them.
David Pecker said Trump was “viewed as the boss” when the Enquirer conducted research on which cover subjects would sell best. He said:
So I discussed with him, and we did a poll in the National Enquirer about Mr Trump running for president, how would the readership feel? Research showed that 80% of the readership of the National Enquirer would want Mr Trump to [run] for president. And I passed that information on to [Donald] Trump and shortly after, he was being interviewed on the Today show.
David Pecker said that he and Michael Cohen were in touch over the years, when Pecker noticed something that he thought Trump should know about. It increased when Trump announced his candidacy.
I would say at a minimum of every week and if there was an issue, [it] could be daily.
In early 2015, did he and Trump ever talk about him running for President?
As I mentioned a little earlier, when Mr Trump launched the Apprentice, and then launched The Celebrity Apprentice his, I would say, the interest in Mr Trump through my magazines basically, the National Enquirer, skyrocketed.
Pecker said they had done internal polls to determine what readership wanted.
All the time, every time we did this, Mr Trump would be the top celebrity.
Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass asks: “Did you visit Mr Trump at Trump Tower on multiple occasions?” “Over the years?” David Pecker asked. “Over the years,” Steinglass said. “Yes.”
”How would you describe him as a businessman?” Pecker replied:
I would describe Mr. Trump as very knowledgable. I would describe him [as] very detail-oriented. I would describe him almost as a micromanager from what I saw, he looked at all the aspects, whatever the issue was.
“How about his approach to money?”
I thought that his approach to money, he was very cautious and very frugal.
Are you familiar with someone named Michael Cohen?” “Yes, I am.”
“Who’s Michael Cohen? “Michael Cohen was Donald Trump’s personal attorney,” Pecker said, explaining that:
I met Michael Cohen at a barmitzvah in early 2000.
Pecker asked about Trump being in control of business practices and tells court he 'reviewed the invoice, looked at the check, and he would sign it'
Victoria Bekiempis
Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass asks David Pecker whether he had ever observed Trump’s business practices.
It appears that Steinglass is trying hard to show that Donald Trump was fully in control of his business practices – including signing off on invoices and checks and well aware of records.
This, of course, undermines any claim Trump might make that he was unaware of the questionable ledger entries. Per Pecker:
While he was reviewing the accounts payable packages, we were talking at the same time, and I noticed that he reviewed the invoice, looked at the check, and he would sign it.
Steinglass pressed: “Could you tell whether the check was stapled to the invoice?” Pecker replied:
As I recollect, the entire package was stapled together.
Pecker tells court of 'great relationship' with Donald Trump
Victoria Bekiempis
David Pecker said he has had a “great relationship” with Donald Trump as he answered questions by the prosecution. Pecker said:
I’ve had a great relationship with Mr Trump over the years, starting in ‘89 I had an idea of creating a magazine called Trump Style and I presented it to Mr. Trump and he liked that idea a lot. He just questioned me: who is going to pay for it?
Trump style launched, on a quarterly basis. Over the years, they grew closer. Pecker said that he would eventually refer to Trump as “Donald”.
They spoke more frequently as the 2016 campaign got into swing, he said.
