In his testimony during Donald Trump’s hush money trial, former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker outlined a “mutually beneficial” scheme to keep the supermarket tabloid loaded with stories boosting his election chances in 2016, while ensuring “negative” stories never saw the light of day.
As part of the arrangement, Mr Pecker would tip off Mr Trump’s then-personal attorney Michael Cohen to “negative” stories about then-candidate Trump – particularly those involving women, according to Mr Pecker.
The former American Media Inc CEO – now the trial’s first witness – joined Mr Cohen and Mr Trump during a now-infamous meeting in August 2015 at Trump Tower in Manhattan, where he was asked “what can I do and what could my magazines do to help the campaign,” he said on Tuesday.
“I said what I would do is I would run or publish positive stories about Mr Trump and publish negative stories about his opponents. And I said I would also – I would also be the eyes and ears,” he said. “If I hear anything negative about women selling stories, I would notify Michael Cohen, and he would be able to have them killed in the magazine, or not be published, or somebody would have to purchase them.”
Mr Trump is charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records to allegedly cover up reimbursements totalling $130,000 to his former attorney, who paid for the silence of adult film star Stormy Daniels to prevent the release of potentially politically damaging stories of Mr Trump’s affair in the weeks leading up to the 2016 presidential election.
Prosecutors are hoping Mr Pecker’s testimony detailing the nature of that so-called “catch and kill” scheme – though not illegal – will show Mr Trump’s intent in his efforts to keep bad press involving allegations of his affairs away from voters.
“In the presidential campaign, I was the person that thought there would be – a lot of women would come out to sell these stories,” Mr Pecker said. “Because Mr Trump was well known as the most eligible bachelor, dating the most beautiful women, and it was clear based on my past experiences that when someone is running for office like this, it is very common for these women to call up a magazine like the National Enquirer to try and sell their stories.”
Mr Pecker described the arrangement as a “mutual benefit.”
“It would help him and it would help me,” he said. “Writing positive stories about Mr Trump and covering the election, and writing negative stories about his opponents, is only going to increase newsstand sales of the National Enquirer. … For me that was my benefit, and then in publishing those types of stories, it was also going to benefit his campaign.”
When he was alerted to potentially damaging stories, Mr Cohen would “try to vet it himself, and then he would go to individual publications to make sure it wasn’t published and get it killed,” according to Mr Pecker.
He described one such story from November 2015, involving a bogus story from former doorman who “was in the market for selling a story that Donald Trump fathered an illegitimate girl with a maid at Trump Tower.”
Mr Pecker tasked then editor-in-chief Dylan Howard to enter into a “source agreement” and “negotiate a price” to take the story “off the market,” he testified.
The price was $30,000.
“I though it was very important that [the doorman] wouldn’t be shopping the story to other media outlets … Part two, I bought the story if the story was true, and I published it, it would probably be the biggest sale of the National Enquirer since the death of Elvis Presley.”
If the story turned out to be true, Mr Pecker said he would have published the story “shortly after it was verified” – but not until after the 2016 election.
If the story “got out in another publication or media outlet, it would have been very embarrassing for the campaign,” Mr Pecker told the court.
An amendment to a November 2015 agreement shown in court notes that the exclusively period for the rights to the story “extended in perpetuity and shall not expire.”
It also added that if the source breaches the agreement, he would have to pay $1m to AMI. “It was basically a lever over him to make sure that wouldn’t happen,” Mr Pecker said.
This is a developing story
Emily Foster is a globe-trotting journalist based in the UK. Her articles offer readers a global perspective on international events, exploring complex geopolitical issues and providing a nuanced view of the world’s most pressing challenges.
