David Pecker, the former CEO of American Media Inc., the parent company of the National Enquirer, testified for a third day in Donald Trump's criminal hush money trial on Thursday (April 25). Pecker was questioned about his role in suppressing stories that could have negatively impacted Trump's 2016 presidential campaign.
Pecker provided further details about his interactions with Karen McDougal and Stormy Daniels, two women who claimed to have had affairs with Trump. Pecker said that he worked out a deal to purchase McDougal's story for $150,000 at the behest of Michael Cohen, who was working directly for Trump.
During the negotiations, Pecker was concerned about who would pay for the story.
"Michael was very agitated, 'Why is this taking so long? Why haven't you reached an agreement?'" Pecker said. "He said, 'Who is going to pay?' and he said, 'You should pay,' and I said, 'Why should I pay? I just paid $30,000 for the doorman story, and this is $150,000.'"
"$150,000," Pecker continued. "Who is going to reimburse me for this?"
"And he said, 'Don't worry about it, the boss will take care of it,' and I took that to mean Donald Trump and that I would be reimbursed from the Trump Org. or Donald Trump," Pecker said.
Pecker also testified that he previously had concerns about the legality of suppressing damaging stories about political candidates after dealing with Arnold Schwarzenegger when he ran for governor of California.
"It was a difficult situation, and it gave me the sensitivity about buying any stories in the future," Pecker explained.
During another line of questioning, Pecker admitted that he purchased the story to prevent her story from influencing the presidential election.
"Was your principal purpose to suppress her story so as not to influence the election?" Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass asked.
" Yes, it was," Pecker replied.
"Were you aware that expenditures by corporations made for the purpose of influencing an election," are unlawful? Steinglass followed up.
"Yes," Pecker answered.
"We purchased the story so it wouldn't be published by any other organization, Pecker said when asked why he bought the story.
"We didn't want the story to embarrass Mr. Trump or embarrass or hurt the campaign," Pecker added.
Pecker then said he went to great lengths to hide the payments from Trump.
"I used Daniel Rodstein to create the invoice because I did not want to have a payment received in the, in the uh AMI finance department from the Trump Organization or Michael Cohen," he explained. "Because I believed that that payment would raise a lot of questions and issues and be communicated to the rest of the editors, which is something I didn't want to happen."
After the prosecution wrapped up their questioning, Trump's defense attorney, Emil Bove, began the cross-examination, focusing on how AMI routinely purchased stories about celebrities they never intended to publish.
"Under your watch, you only published about half the stories that you purchased, is that right," Bove asked Pecker.
"That's about right," Pecker said
Pecker also admitted that AMI would purchase stories to use as leverage against celebrities.
"AMI has used hundreds of thousands of source agreements for these purposes, correct?" Bove asked.
"Yes," Pecker replied.
Bove cited two examples of stories that were killed by AMI.
"Mark Wahlberg, he had an argument with his wife, and the story was going to come out," Pecker said, adding, "We acquired the rights; I advised Wahlberg's team we would acquire the rights and not publish it."
Bove asked, "You also purchased a story related to Tiger Woods? Photographs?"
"It was a source agreement, so we did purchase it, yes," Pecker answered.
He also said he killed a story about Rahm Emmanual having an affair.
The defense also highlighted Pecker's long-standing relationship with Trump, suggesting that Pecker's actions were motivated by a desire to maintain access to Trump, who helped drive magazine sales. Pecker acknowledged that he had attempted to suppress negative stories about Trump as far back as 1998.