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Pecker at hush money trial says Trump feared trysts would hurt image, but didn't mention Melania

Molly Crane-Newman and Josephine Stratman, New York Daily News on

Published in News & Features

NEW YORK — Donald Trump never mentioned worrying about his wife, Melania, getting wind of his alleged trysts with porn star Stormy Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal — only his future in politics, a Manhattan jury heard Thursday during explosive testimony at the former president’s hush money trial.

During his third day on the witness stand, the former CEO of American Media, David Pecker, said the hush money scheme he helped carry out for Trump had one goal: to win him the White House.

Pecker described a high-stakes scramble to silence women who claimed Trump cheated on his wife with them in the lead-up to the election and being showered with gratitude from the then-president after it appeared to succeed. The hush money scheme was part of a broader effort to use stories in the National Enquirer and other AMI publications to advance Trump’s political brand.

Assistant District Attorney Joshua Steinglass asked Pecker if Trump ever expressed concern for how Melania would think about his affairs.

“No,” the witness replied.

Jurors also saw a black-and-white photo of Pecker and Trump walking by the White House rose garden in January 2017, where Pecker said the then-president invited him as a “thank you,” and asked him how “our girl” was doing about the former Playboy model Pecker paid $150,000 to silence.

“I wanted to thank you for taking care of the (Karen) McDougal situation,” Pecker quoted Trump, sitting just feet away from him in the courtroom.

Pecker told the court he felt Trump “was thanking me for buying (their) stories and not publishing them.”

The longtime publisher walked the jury through how he worked closely with Trump’s ex-fixer, Michael Cohen — arranging for his company to pay off McDougal and for Cohen to pay him back through a shell company. McDougal has long claimed she and Trump had a 10-month affair in 2006 and 2007, shortly after his third marriage, to Melania, and the birth of their son, Barron Trump.

Trump is charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, alleging he covered up hush money payments as part of a sweeping scheme to defraud voters. He has pleaded not guilty.

Earlier this week, Pecker told jurors earlier that the scheme to bury unflattering stories about presidential candidate Trump and elevate hit jobs about his opponents was devised at an August 2015 meeting at Trump Tower attended by him, Trump, and Cohen. Pecker agreed to publish pro-Trump stories while working to hide unsavory ones, taking them “off the market” by purchasing the exclusive rights to ensure they never got published in a scheme known as “catch and kill.”

On Thursday, Pecker said that as the election grew near and women came out of the woodwork, he began to worry about his legal liability.

Steinglass displayed for the jury an invoice dated Aug. 6, 2016, that listed Pecker’s AMI as the subsidiary and McDougal’s lawyer, Keith Davidson, as the vendor. AMI, the following month, assigned the rights to McDougal’s story to Cohen’s shell company for $125,000, which Pecker worried about.

 

“Why worry? I’m your friend. The boss will take care of it,” the witness quoted Cohen telling him.

Pecker said though the payback deal was signed, it was never executed. After speaking with AMI’s general counsel, the publisher decided it was legally too risky and he would, instead, eat the debt.

“He was very angry … Screaming basically,” Pecker recalled Cohen’s reaction in October 2016, quoting the fixer telling him, “The boss is going to be very angry at you.”

But Pecker said he didn’t budge, nor would he comply with Cohen’s wishes to pay off a second woman who came forward after McDougal — porn star Stormy Daniels — as he was afraid the association with her would hurt his media brand.

“I am not a bank, and we are not paying out any more disbursements of monies,” Pecker recalled telling Cohen, who said Trump would be furious.”

Cohen ultimately paid Daniels $130,000, and when he hadn’t been reimbursed by his boss months later, Pecker put in a good word.

Prosecutor says Trump violated gag order again

Earlier in the day, Trump and his defense team walked into the courtroom at 9:30 a.m. He appeared chipper, smiling as he spoke to his lawyers Emil Bove and Todd Blanche and said something that made them laugh.

Amid news of Harvey Weinstein’s conviction being overturned, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg was notably not in the courtroom Thursday morning, nor was his chief of appeals, Steven Wu.

Before jurors took their seats, prosecutor Chris Conroy told Merchan Trump had violated his gag order another four times by commenting on jurors and witnesses Michael Cohen and David Pecker in recent media interviews. He renewed his request to the judge to find Trump in contempt.

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