Trump hush money trial: Ex-tabloid publisher, Trump’s former assistant testify

NEW YORK — Jurors heard from three witnesses Friday — a former Trump Organization employee, the former publisher of the National Enquirer and a banker — on the fourth day of testimony in former President Donald Trump’s criminal trial in New York.

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Trump is accused of falsifying business records to hide payments he made to keep stories about his alleged marital infidelity out of the news as he sought to win the 2016 presidential election. At the heart of the case is a $130,000 payment made to ensure the silence of adult film star Stormy Daniels, who claims to have had a sexual encounter with Trump years before he ran for president.

Most of Friday’s proceedings focused on testimony from former American Media Inc. CEO David Pecker, who had returned to the witness stand for a fourth day. Pecker testified that he met with Trump and Trump’s then-fixer, Michael Cohen, at Trump Tower in August 2015 and agreed to serve as the “eyes and ears” of the campaign.

On the stand Friday, Pecker acknowledged that there was no discussion at the meeting of the “catch and kill” scheme that was later used to keep negative stories about Trump quiet, The Associated Press reported.

Under questioning by Trump attorney Emil Bove, Pecker acknowledged that he ran negative stories about Trump’s rivals in the 2016 presidential election — including Ben Carson and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton — before the 2015 meeting, according to CNN. He also confirmed that when word of the Daniels story surfaced, he wanted nothing to do with buying it, despite having purchased two earlier stories alleging that Trump had extramarital affairs, the news network reported.

Earlier, Pecker testified that AMI paid a onetime Trump Tower doorman $30,000 after he claimed to have information about Trump fathering a child out of wedlock. He also confirmed that the company paid former Playboy model Karen McDougal $150,000 for the rights to her story. McDougal claimed that she had a nearly yearlong affair with Trump beginning in 2006.

“I said to Michael Cohen that after paying for the doorman story and the Karen McDougal story, I wasn’t going to pay anything further and I wasn’t a bank,” Pecker said Friday, according to CNN.

On Thursday, Pecker testified that the deal with McDougal included an agreement to publish health and fitness columns under her name in AMI publications, and to feature her on two magazine covers. Pecker said the deal was reached to keep a negative story about Trump out of the news, but he said Friday that for McDougal, the deal was aimed at restarting her career, according to The New York Times.

“When AMI signed this agreement … you believed it had a legitimate business purpose, correct?” Bove asked on Friday, according to NBC News.

“I did,” Pecker responded. Later, he told prosecutor Joshua Steinglass that AMI’s agreement to publish McDougal’s columns was “basically … a disguise of the actual purpose,” The Washington Post reported.

“The actual purpose was the acquire her lifetime rights to the story so it’s not published,” he said.

Pecker testified after he reached a nonprosecution agreement with authorities in 2018. Bove asked him several times about the agreement, which came as AMI was looking to sell some of its publications to Hudson News, the Post reported. He acknowledged that the federal investigation “put further stress on the transaction” but added that he felt “no pressure” to finalize the deal with prosecutors in order to complete the transaction, the AP reported.

Ultimately, the sale did not go through.

Rhona Graff, Trump’s former personal assistant, also took the stand on Friday. She worked for Trump at the Trump Organization for 34 years, handling his schedule and maintaining his contacts, according to CNN.

She testified that she saw Daniels in the reception area at Trump Tower before Trump ran for president and suggested that her boss might have been interested in casting her in his reality TV show, “The Apprentice,” the news network reported. She spoke fondly of her time with the Trump Organization, calling Trump a “fair” and “respectful” boss, according to the AP.

“I never had the same day twice,” she said. “It was a very stimulating, exciting, fascinating place to be.”

Jurors also heard from Gary Farro, who was a banker at First Republic Bank when Cohen sought to arrange the $130,000 hush-money payment to Daniels, the Times reported. Cohen had accounts at the bank and Farro said he was assigned to work with him because of his “ability to handle individuals that may be a little challenging,” according to CNN.

“Frankly, I didn’t find him that difficult,” he said.

Trump has pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business records in New York and denied any wrongdoing. The former president is also facing charges in separate cases in Georgia, Florida and Washington, D.C.

The judge ended testimony for the day, according to the Times. Judge Merchan said that the court is closed on Monday but will be back in session on Tuesday at 9:30 a.m., CNN reported.

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