David Pecker spent all day on the witness stand on Thursday in the Manhattan criminal trial against Donald Trump.
Pecker, the longtime head of America Media, which owns the National Enquirer tabloid, is a key witness because he was intimately involved in the practice of buying the rights to potentially damaging stories about Trump and then never publishing them, a practice known as “catch and kill”. The central allegation in the case is that Trump used catch and kill to prevent Stormy Daniels from going public about an alleged affair with him in 2016, when he was running for president, and then falsified business records to conceal it.
Pecker’s testimony is critical because it helps explain the catch-and-kill scheme to jurors and the intent behind it. His testimony offered clear evidence that the purpose of the catch-and-kill scheme was to prevent damaging information to the campaign from becoming public. Pecker testified about his involvement in spending $150,000 to buy the rights to a story about an alleged affair from Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model, as well as Daniels.
Here are key takeaways from his testimony:
Pecker said he bought McDougal’s story to prevent it from interfering in the 2016 election
Pecker squarely said that the principal purpose of his decision to buy Karen McDougal’s story was to benefit Trump’s campaign.
“We didn’t want this story to embarrass Mr Trump or embarrass or hurt the campaign,” he said, referring to himself and Michael Cohen. Asked by the prosecutor whether his intention was to prevent the story from interfering in the election, Pecker said yes.
Pecker also believed Trump wanted to kill stories for his campaign
Before Trump ran for president and an embarrassing story came up, Trump was mostly concerned about how his family would react. But once his campaign began, Trump was more concerned with political interests.
“I think it was for the campaign,” Pecker said when asked if Trump had said anything to make him think he was acting more out of the interests of his family than for politics. This is a key point for prosecutors to emphasize with the jury since one of Trump’s defenses could be that he was acting to preserve his reputation, not interfere in the election.
Pecker said he was certain he would be reimbursed by Trump
Even though he discussed much of the scheme to buy Karen McDougal’s story with Michael Cohen, Pecker was certain that it was either Donald Trump or the Trump Organization who would ultimately reimburse him.
“Every time we went out for lunch I always paid. He [Cohen] never paid. I didn’t think he had authorization to pay without Trump’s approval,” Pecker said. “I assumed he was being reimbursed by the Trump organization or Donald Trump.”
“He said to me, don’t worry, I’m your friend. The boss will take care of everything,” Pecker said.
Once the agreement with McDougal was signed in August 2016, Pecker said he believed both Trump and Cohen knew about it. Pecker also said he never would have participated in the scheme absent the reassurance that Trump would pay him back.
Pecker was aware there could be campaign-finance problems
Throughout his testimony on Thursday, Pecker made it clear he knew there could be campaign finance issues with purchasing a story in coordination with Trump and to benefit him.
Some of that stemmed from an episode in the early 2000s he had when he agreed to buy and kill negative stories for Arnold Schwarzenegger when Schwarzenegger was running for governor. One of the women whose story he bought but did not publish spoke to the Los Angeles Times, and the episode was hugely embarrassing for Pecker. “It gave me the sensitivity about buying any stories in the future,” he said.
Facing questions later in the afternoon from Trump lawyer Emil Bove, Pecker detailed how American Media would routinely enter into “source agreements” in which they would purchase and kill stories. Pressed for examples, he said he had killed stories about an alleged Rahm Emanuel affair, an argument Mark Wahlberg had with his wife, and photographs of Tiger Woods. He said the relationship between his publications and celebrities could be mutually beneficial.
When it came time to draw up the contract for McDougal, Pecker included provisions in the agreement that would allow her to write for the magazine and appear on the cover. That was an effort to disguise the true purpose of the contract and justify the $150,000 payment to her.
Pecker refused to pay for Stormy Daniels story
After laying out $180,000 to kill stories from Karen McDougal and a Trump doorman, Pecker was unwilling to directly pay Stormy Daniels for her story about an alleged affair with Trump.
“I said: I am not purchasing the story. I am not going to be involved with a porn star,” he said. He said he did not want to be affiliated with a porn star because he worried it could be a moral stain on the company, adding that the National Enquirer’s biggest distributor was Walmart.
Cohen tried to bully Pecker into paying. “He said the boss would be furious with me and I should go ahead and purchase the story,” Pecker said. The boss was taken to mean Trump.
Cohen then proceeded to buy the story himself, setting up a shell company to do so. But Cohen had twice not met his obligation to pay, and when Pecker spoke to him about it, he again suggested Pecker pay. Pecker refused, and said Cohen had better do it because Trump would be furious if he did not.
Trump personally thanked Pecker for killing negative stories about him
After he was elected president, Trump summoned Pecker to Trump Tower and thanked him for killing negative stories about him. He asked him specifically about Karen McDougal, saying “How’s our girl doing?”, according to Pecker.
When Pecker responded that she was “fine” and “writing her articles” (AMI had arranged for McDougal to write fitness columns with a ghostwriter). Trump expressed gratitude for what Pecker had done. “The stories would have been very embarrassing,” Pecker said Trump told him.
Cohen asked Pecker to help him get paid
After the election, Pecker said he met Cohen at Trump Tower. Cohen was obsessed with acquiring the National Enquirer’s files on Trump, he said, which Pecker had an executive review, and said they were mostly old files. Pecker told Cohen he would not let him review the files.
But at the same meeting, Cohen complained that he had not yet been repaid the $150,000 he paid to acquire Stormy Daniels’ story and that he had not yet received his Christmas bonus. He asked Pecker if he could speak to Trump and help him get paid.
Pecker did eventually speak to Trump, he said, who told Pecker he should not worry about Cohen, who had multiple apartments in Trump’s buildings and owned several lucrative taxi medallions.
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll take care of it,” Pecker said Trump told him.
Trump continued to ask about McDougal in the White House
Once he was president, Trump invited Pecker to the White House for dinner. Trump asked Pecker how McDougal was going and Pecker said she was quiet.
Later, in 2018, McDougal gave an interview to Anderson Cooper, and Trump called Pecker, he said. When Pecker explained that he had amended McDougal’s agreement to allow her to speak to the press, Trump was furious, Pecker said. “Mr Trump got very aggravated when he heard that I amended it and he couldn’t understand why.”
Pecker said the Wall Street Journal had already published an article on McDougal and his decision to amend the agreement was to maintain some control over the story.
After Daniels gave an interview in March of 2018, Trump called Pecker and said Daniels had breached her agreement with him and Cohen, and owed him $24m.
Cohen said Trump would use the power of the justice department to help Pecker
Pecker described his fear upon receiving a letter in 2018 about a campaign-finance violation. Cohen asked Pecker why he was so worried.
“Michael Cohen said: why are you worried? Jeff Sessions is the attorney general and Donald Trump has him in his pocket,” Pecker said Cohen told him. Pecker said he was very worried.
