Donald Trump's criminal trial in the state of New York regarding the falsification of accounting records to buy the silence of former porn actress Stormy Daniels resumed this Thursday (25) with the continuation of the testimony of David Pecker, former editor of American tabloid National Enquirer, accused of contributing to the Republican's 2016 election campaign by hiding stories of the former president's extramarital affairs.
According to Pecker's statements to the jury on Tuesday (23), the team of the then presidential candidate in 2016 made an agreement with the tabloid to prevent negative stories about the politician from surfacing during the election period. “What I should do is publish positive stories about Mr. Trump and negative stories about his opponents,” he said in court.
The trial was suspended on Tuesday and resumed on Thursday with new statements from the first witness, this time about how his publication handled the story sold by model Karen McDougal, who approached the National Enquirer with allegations that she had a year-long romantic relationship. Trump.
Pecker said in court that when he spoke to the former president about McDougal's story, he recalled that Trump called the model “a nice girl” and questioned the former editor about what he thought should be done about the situation. . “I think you should buy this story and take it off the market,” the former editor told the Republican at the time, explaining that he “believed the story was true” and could harm his campaign.
In June 2016, while the tabloid was evaluating the veracity of the model's statements, Michael Cohen, a former lawyer and now a witness against Trump, instructed Pecker to acquire the rights to the story and later “the boss” would compensate the costs, according to Pecker. , who understood that it was the former president himself, that the Trump Organization would reimburse him.
Prosecutors in the case presented the jury with the contract with McDougal, dated Aug. 5, 2016, in which she granted the rights to her story of a relationship she had with a person Pecker understood to be Donald Trump.
The media executive testified that the contract included other provisions, such as having McDougal write monthly health columns for the tabloid. “With regard to campaign laws, I wanted the contract to be a record that stipulated that the services she would provide to the American media had a basis for it, the $150,000 that would be paid,” Pecker said.
Prosecutors then asked whether the former publisher considered that the other provisions were intended to disguise the true nature of the contract and Pecker answered the question in the affirmative.
Pecker testified that he believed Donald Trump had knowledge about the $150,000 contract to buy Karen McDougal's silence about an alleged year-long affair.
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