Today we were reminded of the sleazy tabloid world in which Donald Trump lived as he ran for president in 2016. David Pecker, Trump’s longtime friend (they are no longer speaking) and the publisher of the The National Enquirer testified as part of Trump’s “hush money” trial. There has been a lot of coverage today about why Pecker is testifying and how it fits with the prosecution’s case against the former president, but in this post I want to once again remind readers–especially Trump’s evangelical supporters and voters–as to the kind of person they enabled and continue to enable.
So here are some snippets from USA Today‘s live blogging of the trial with Aysha Bagchi and Bart Jansen. You can read the entire transcript of the trial here.
- David Pecker described a meeting about what his magazines could do to help the Trump presidential campaign. Pecker testified he made the following promise: “I would run or publish positive stories about Mr. Trump and I would publish negative stories about his opponents.”
- Pecker testified that he promised to be “eyes and ears” because he knew the Trump Organization had a “very small staff.” Pecker said he promised that, if he heard anything negative about Trump or anything about women selling stories, he would notify Michael Cohen, as he did over the last several years. Cohen would then have the stories killed, Pecker testified.
- Pecker testified that he thought a number of women would try to sell stories because Trump was “well known as the most eligible bachelor and dated the most beautiful women.” He said it was clear based on his past experience that when someone is running for public office, it is very common for women to call up a place like The National Enquirer to try to sell their stories, or Pecker would hear in the marketplace that women’s stories were being marketed.
- Pecker testified that he told Cohen the agreement to help the Trump presidential campaign had to be “highly confidential.” Pecker said the arrangement was designed to have him vetting stories first and then sharing them with Cohen. Pecker said, in order to help the campaign, he wanted to keep things as quiet as possible.
- Michael Cohen would call David Pecker and say, “We would like” for you to run a negative article on a certain political opponent, Pecker testified. Then Cohen would send Pecker information about, say, Ted Cruz, or Ben Carson, or Marco Rubio, and that was the basis for The National Enquirer’s story, Pecker said. “Then we would embellish it from there,” Pecker added. He described specifically adding photos, planning out how to execute the story – things that he said went beyond just coming up with a story headline.
- Pecker testified that, when Cohen would call Pecker and say, “We would like” for a negative story on a Trump opponent, Pecker understood Cohen to be calling on behalf of Trump.
- The prosecution has shown stories about Ben Carson and Ted Cruz on screens inside the courtroom. Pecker confirmed the articles were run in accordance with the agreement he says he reached with Donald Trump and Michael Cohen in Trump Tower to help the Trump campaign. One story headline shown to the jury, which appeared to have been posted on March 30, 2016, said: “TED CRUZ SEX SCANDAL – 5 SECRET MISTRESSES.” The story had a subheading stating: “The romps that are rocking his presidential campaign!”
- Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass asked David Pecker who Dino Sajudin is. Pecker replied he was a doorman at Trump Tower who, Pecker heard, was selling a story about Trump allegedly fathering a child with a maid. “I immediately called Michael Cohen,” Pecker said. Cohen replied that the story is “absolutely not true,” but said he would check it out, according to Pecker. Sajudin’s story has been widely questioned. Sajudin only claimed to have been told about the child, and a New Yorker investigation “uncovered no evidence that Trump fathered the child.” Trump has denied Sajudin’s story.
- Pecker said he called then-Trump attorney Michael Cohen and said they needed to move forward with getting Trump Tower doorman Dino Sajudin’s story, and had a negotiated price for the story of $30,000. Pecker said he would pay for it and Cohen thanked him, adding, “The boss will be very pleased.” Donald Trump was “the boss,” Pecker confirmed. Cohen later spoke to Pecker and said Trump would take a DNA test and the story of a love child between them is “absolutely impossible.” Pecker said that wouldn’t be necessary, and that his team would vet the story.
- Pecker said Trump Tower doorman Dino Sajudin’s story of a Trump love-child would have been the biggest National Enquirer story “since the death of Elvis Presley.” He said if the story turned out to be true, he would have published it after the 2016 presidential election. “That was the conversation I had with Michael Cohen, and that’s what we agreed to,” Pecker said. However, in investigating the story, Pecker’s team concluded the story was completely untrue. He said he still paid $30,000 to keep it from getting out through another media outlet and hurting the Trump campaign.
- Pecker said he told then-Trump attorney Michael Cohen that Trump Tower doorman Dino Sajudin’s story of an alleged Trump love-child wasn’t true and Sajudin was difficult to deal with. Pecker suggested releasing Sajudin from the agreement to keep his story exclusive, adding that keeping Sajudin locked in would cause more problems. Cohen said not to release Sajudin until after the November, 2016 election. Sajudin was released in December.
- Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass is now asking David Pecker about former Playboy model Karen McDougal’s story. McDougal alleged that she had an affair with Trump that overlapped with Melania Trump’s pregnancy. Trump denies the claim.
- Pecker testified that he was speaking to former Trump attorney Michael Cohen frequently around the first week of June in 2016, which was around when Karen McDougal’s story came up. While previously they spoke “probably” a couple times a week, they were now speaking almost every day, sometimes a couple of times a day. Cohen suggested that he and Pecker communicate over Signal, a communication application. Cohen said no one would be able to trace it or listen in, and the conversation would be destroyed after the call, according to Pecker. Pecker added he doesn’t know if that’s true.
- Pecker testified that he recommended Trump buy McDougal’s story and Trump responded: “I don’t buy any stories.” Trump added: “Anytime you do anything like this, it always gets out.”
Read all of USA Today‘s coverage here.
So there you have it. This is the guy who First Baptist-Dallas pastor Robert Jeffress once called the “most pro-faith president in history.”
Mitt Romney has the line of the day: