As part of his criminal case against former President Donald Trump, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg trotted out the National Enquirer’s David Pecker as one of his key witnesses. However, based on what happened at the trial, Pecker’s testimony was a huge flop, particularly when the narrative he and the prosecution tried to weave was ripped apart on cross-examination.
As background, Pecker is the former CEO of a news media company called American Media Inc. One of the companies American Media Inc. owned is the National Enquirer, notably mainly for the scandals involving it. Pecker was expected, during his testimony, to detail an alleged “catch and kill” strategy he agreed to pursue for Trump that involved buying up the rights to harmful stories about Trump before they were published and then letting them languish, thus keeping the information covered up.
Particularly, Pecker was expected to detail how the National Enquirer was to pursue such a strategy on Trump’s behalf and at Trump’s request during and around the 2016 presidential campaign to hush up potentially harmful stories about Trump having to do with his history with women, women such as Stormy Daniels, whose alleged affair with Trump helped lead to this case.
But that narrative took a body blow when Pecker testified that, while the Enquirer did engage in such activities on behalf of Trump, it was not Trump but he and former Trump attorney Michael Cohen who was primarily concerned with keeping stories quiet. Pecker testified that he agreed to inform Cohen about harmful stories and then use the “catch and kill” strategy to keep them under wraps. Pecker wanted to help Trump in that manner because he supported Trump’s candidacy; the National Enquirer endorsed him in 2016.
Pecker also described how the “catch and kill” strategy worked, saying that when he heard a rumor about fathering an illegitimate child in 2015, he “immediately called Michael Cohen and described exactly what [he] was told.” Describing what happened next, Pecker said, “Immediately, Michael Cohen says to me, ‘Absolutely not true, but I’ll check it out.’”
He went on to add that the National Enquirer bought the story for $30,000 to keep it out of the news. Pecker said, describing that conversation with Cohen, “I said I’ll pay for it, this is a very big story and it should be removed from the market.” Pecker said that Cohen told him, “He said, ‘Thank you,’ and, ‘The boss will be very pleased.’” Pecker added, “I made the decision to purchase the story because of the potential embarrassment it had to the campaign and to Mr. Trump,”
That testimony was a flop compared to what the media was claiming before Pecker’s testimony. Salon, for example, noted that numerous “legal experts” were claiming that Pecker could be a bombshell witness and prove Trump’s involvement. It wrote:
Cohen is expected to be a key witness in the case but Trump’s team has attacked his credibility after he pleaded guilty in 2017 to making false statements while working for the former president. Pecker’s testimony could be critical to supporting some of Cohen’s testimony.
“Pecker can testify that Trump not only understood but heartily endorsed his publication’s offer to ‘catch and kill’ negative stories about him, especially as they pertained to Trump’s alleged extramarital affairs,” tweeted MSNBC legal analyst Lisa Rubin. “And given how few people outside Michael Cohen directly communicated with Trump about the scheme at issue, Pecker’s testimony could be critical in establishing Trump’s intent and knowledge.”
New York University Law Prof. Ryan Goodman predicted that Pecker “could be a key witness – in ways more devastating than Michael Cohen.”
Pecker’s testimony “should be strong proof of core allegation that the hush money scheme was geared toward influencing the outcome of the presidential election,” Goodman wrote, noting that Pecker met with Trump and Cohen at Trump Tower to set up the catch-and-kill election operation that “set the whole scheme in motion.”
As it was, Pecker’s testimony that he and Cohen came up with the scheme and executed it, with the payment for the Stormy Daniels story coming out of his own pocket, was something other than a bombshell that helped DA Bragg and might even have harmed his case. Such is what some conservative social media accounts suggested in the wake of Pecker’s testimony.
The popular X news account Travis Media Group reported on that testimony, saying, “JUST IN: David Pecker just testified that he’s the one who told Trump women might come to him with stories, because Trump was such a popular bachelor who dated the most beautiful women. Apparently Trump was just planning a campaign run, but Pecker and Cohen were the ones worried about women coming forward. Does the prosecution realize they just made themselves look ridiculous? Their key witness just said Trump didn’t even come up with any of this.”
Similarly, the National Pulse’s Raheem Kassam wrote, in a post on X, “Pecker effectively testified today that he and Cohen drummed up this scheme, without Trump’s instruction. Not a good day for Alvin Bragg and Joe Biden!!!”
Predictably, the liberal media claimed Pecker’s testimony was a huge success. Brian Stelter, for example, the former CNN host, claimed that Pecker’s testimony about how the Enquirer helped Trump showed that it was just advertising for the former president. Watch him here:
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