Their ties were solidified during a pivotal August 2015 meeting at Trump Tower involving Trump, his lawyer and personal fixer Michael Cohen, and another aide, Hope Hicks, in which Pecker was asked what he and the magazines he led could do for the campaign.
Ex-National Enquirer chief David Pecker testified in Trump's criminal trial.Tuesday, April 23, 2024 6:33PMA veteran tabloid publisher testified Tuesday that he pledged to be Donald Trump 's "eyes and ears" during his 2016 presidential campaign, recounting how he promised the then-candidate that he would help suppress harmful stories and even arranged to purchase a doorman's silence.
With Trump sitting just feet away in the courtroom, Pecker detailed his intimate, behind-the-scenes involvement in Trump's rise from political novice to the Republican nomination and then the White House.
"I would receive a call from Michael Cohen, and he would direct me and direct Dylan Howard which candidate and which direction we should go," Pecker said, referring to the tabloid's then-editor. Trump's lawyers are expected to make attacks on Cohen's credibility a foundation of their defense, but in opening with Pecker, prosecutors hope to focus attention on a witness with a far less volatile backstory.
Prosecutors allege that Trump sought to illegally influence the 2016 race through a practice known in the tabloid industry as "catch-and-kill" - catching a potentially damaging story by buying the rights to it and then killing it through agreements that prevent the paid person from telling the story to anyone else.
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