Donald Trump’s criminal hush money trial is now well underway with the prosecution and defence teams having presented their opening statements on Monday.
Tabloid media mogul David Pecker, who published The National Enquirer and was part of the “catch-and-kill” scheme at the heart of the case, also began giving testimony and has returned to the stand today.
Judge Juan Merchan will also rule today on complaints raised by Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg’s team about numerous instances of Mr Trump allegedly violating the terms of his gag order by posting bitterly about the case and its key participants on his Truth Social platform.
The defendant continued to whine on social media on Monday evening, calling Mr Bragg “an election denier” as he otherwise looked ahead to the Supreme Court’s hearing on his presidential immunity defence against prosecution, which will take place on Thursday.
Elsewhere on the legal front, an agreement has been reached over Mr Trump’s $175m bond to appeal the civil fraud trial ruling against him and witness statements in the classified documents case have been made public.
Alex Woodward is providing live updates from the courthouse throughout the trial.
Trump calls campus pro-Palestine protests a ‘disgrace’
Donald Trump has branded the pro-Palestine protests sweeping college campuses across the US a “disgrace” as Jewish students are warned to stay home and the Columbia president faces falls to resign.
Dan Gooding has the story:
Oliver O’Connell23 April 2024 17:15
We’re shown a couple of dozen National Enquirer headlines from after that August 2015 meeting and before the 2016 election.
DONALD TRUMP: THE MAN BEHIND THE LEGEND!
DONALD TRUMP: HEALTHIEST INDIVIDUAL EVER ELECTED!
OBAMA’S HALF-BROTHER – CHEERING ON DONALD AT DEBATE
Alex Woodward 23 April 2024 17:15
“When I notified Cohen of a negative story, he 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.”
The agreements were never put into writing, they were “an agreement among friends.”
It was a 20-25 minute meeting, Pecker says.
After the meeting, he met with Dylan Howard, then editor of the National Enquirer.
“I described to him the meeting I had just had … I described to him that this concept and agreement I made has to be highly, highly confidential.”
He asked him to notify the West Coast and East Coast bureau chiefs, and “I said that any, any stories that are out there commenting” about Trump, his family, the election, “whatever it might be, I want you to vet the stories, I want you to bring them to me.”
And then he would call Michael Cohen “and tell them what the stories are.”
Alex Woodward23 April 2024 17:12
Pecker ran negative stories about Hillary Clinton, “as an enabler for Bill Clinton’s womanizing,” which were big sells.
“I think it was a mutual benefit. It would help him and it would help me.”
Trump was “pleased” with that.
“In 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.”
Alex Woodward23 April 2024 17:02
How did the topic of women come up?
“In the presidential campaign, I was the person who thought there would be, a lot of women who would come out to sell these stories, 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. Or I would hear it in the marketplace that other stories were being marketed.”
Alex Woodward23 April 2024 16:59
Pecker outlines beginnings of ‘catch-and-kill’ scheme as way to help campaign
“At that meeting, Donald Trump and Michael asked me what could I do and what could my magazines do to help the campaign. 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 publish negative stories about his opponents. And I said I would also… I would also be the eyes and ears… I said I would be the eyes and ears because I knew the Trump Organization had a small staff. … Anything I hear in the marketplace. 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.”
So they would not get published you mean?
Alex Woodward23 April 2024 16:59
Pecker recalls running a reader poll about Trump running for president.
“When Mr Trump launched The Apprentice and then launched Celebrity Apprentice, his, I would say, the interest in Mr Trump through my magazines, basically in the National Enquirer, skyrocketed. We would do a lot of research … to see which celebrity would sell the best. Every time we did this, Mr Trump would be the top celebrity. … Mr Trump was viewed as the boss.
“I discussed it with him … we did a poll in the National Enquirer, about Mr Trump running for president, how would readers feel … 80 per cent of the readership of the National Enquirer would want him to run.”
Trump later cited that poll in an interview on the Today show.
Pecker was present at Trump Tower for the campaign kickoff announcement in 2015.
We’re shown an email from Pecker to Michael Cohen on June 2, 2015, thanking him for thinking of him for the invitation to Trump’s June 16 announcement.
Cohen told him: “No one deserves to be there more than you.”
Cohen was waiting for him in the atrium when he got there, Pecker says.
We’re getting to the Trump Tower “catch-and-kill” meeting.
Alex Woodward23 April 2024 16:51
Pecker met Michael Cohen at a bar mitzvah in early 2000.
He later met Cohen again when Trump introduced Pecker to Cohen in 2007. Pecker was told at that time to bring issues — such as stories about Trump or his family — to Cohen.
From 2015-17, Pecker met with Cohen if “I had something to call him about or heard something, something to discuss, maybe once a month, twice a quarter.”
Those meetings and calls increased after Trump’s presidential campaign announcement: “A minimum of every week. If there was an issue, it could be daily.”
Oliver O’Connell & Alex Woodward23 April 2024 16:45
Asked if he ever observed Trump’s business practices, Pecker says: “I had a meeting with Mr Trump in his office and when I was there his assistant … brought in a batch of invoices and checks to sign. … The entire package was stapled together.”
He describes Trump as “knowledgeable, detail-oriented, almost as a micro-manager” who “looked at all the aspects of what an issue was.”
His approach to money is “very cautious and very frugal.”
Alex Woodward23 April 2024 16:41
One of the first calls Pecker received after buying The National Enquirer in March 1999 “was from Trump, he said congratulations, you bought a great magazine.”
Pecker also can’t recall his assistant’s last name. He just knows her as Trish.
Pecker is describing his relationship with Trump around the time of The Apprentice and Celebrity Apprentice, and how Trump would send him information about who was “fired” from the show in advance.
They would meet “once a month or once or twice a quarter” in person from 2015 to 2017. But that changed “after he announced his run for the presidency”.
“I saw Mr Trump more frequently.”
Alex Woodward23 April 2024 16:37
News Summary:
- Trump hush money trial live: Judge Merchan to rule if Trump violated gag order
- Check all news and articles from the latest World updates.
- Please Subscribe us at Google News.