Key Witness Says Trump Knew About Every Single Hush Money Payment

During his testimony in Donald Trump’s hush-money trial on Thursday, former tabloid magnate David Pecker wasted no time in blaming Trump completely for the whole scheme.

Pecker, ex-CEO of American Media Inc. and former publisher of the National Enquirer, is a key witness in the trial and returned to court in Manhattan for the third day to testify over charges that Trump illegally paid off adult film actress Stormy Daniels to cover up an affair before the 2016 election. Pecker, in a deal with the prosecution, has immunity and can give up details about his role in “catch-and-kill” schemes designed to protect Trump from negative coverage.

One question in court concerned a deal to pay Playboy model Karen McDougal, who also had an affair with Trump. Pecker told the court that Trump had direct knowledge of the payment contract, in addition to his then-fixer and attorney, Michael Cohen.

When asked by the prosecutor whether Trump wanted to keep negative stories hidden out of concern for his presidential campaign or in order to protect his family, Pecker replied simply: “I thought it was for the campaign.”

During Trump’s presidency, Pecker said he became worried after being contacted by the Federal Election Commission. Cohen tried to reassure Pecker that “Jeff Sessions is the attorney general and Donald Trump has him in his pocket.”. In earlier testimony, Pecker also described in detail how he broke campaign finance laws to help Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, explaining how he didn’t report the hush-money payments.

Trump is facing 34 felony charges for allegedly falsifying business records with the intent to further an underlying crime in his attempt to cover up an affair with adult film actress Stormy Daniels by paying her off. Daniels is expected to take the witness stand in the trial following Pecker.

Disgraced Hollywood producer and serial abuser Harvey Weinstein had his 2020 rape conviction overturned by a New York appeals court on Thursday, but not everyone on the bench agreed with the decision.

In a scathing dissenting opinion, Judge Madeline Singas wrote that the court appeared “oblivious to, or unconcerned with, the distressing implications” of the ruling.

“Men who serially sexually exploit their power over women—especially the most vulnerable groups in society—will reap the benefit of today’s decision,” Singas wrote. “Under the majority’s logic, instances in which a trafficker repeatedly leverages workers’ undocumented status to coerce them into sex, or a restaurant manager withholds tips from his employees unless they perform sexual acts becomes a series of individual ‘credibility contests’ and unrelated ‘misunderstandings.”

Accusations against Weinstein spurred the #MeToo movement into virality in 2017, helping women around the world have their sexual violence accusations be taken more seriously. Dozens of women in the film industry accused Weinstein of more than 100 instances of sexual harassment, abuse, and rape since 1980, but he was convicted on just one charge of rape in the third degree and a criminal sexual act in a landmark decision in February 2020.

The Appeal Court’s 4-3 decision claimed that the inclusion of evidence and testimony from women whose experiences were not a part of the charges filed against Weinstein had been a critical error in the original trial.

“We conclude that the trial court erroneously admitted testimony of uncharged, alleged prior sexual acts against persons other than the complainants of the underlying crimes because that testimony served no material non-propensity purpose,” wrote Judge Jenny Rivera in her opinion.

Rivera described the errors as “egregious” and said the only solution would be to retry Weinstein, which would involve calling his victims to testify again.

Weinstein is expected to be transferred to a California prison to ride out the remainder of his 16-year sentence for another case in which he was convicted of one count of rape and two counts of sexual assault. However, Weinstein will appeal that conviction on May 20, according to his attorney, Jennifer Bonjean, who spoke with The New York Times. Bonjean expects that Thursday’s ruling will bode well for his appeal in the Los Angeles case.

Donald Trump’s old friend-turned-key-witness in his New York hush money trial blatantly admitted Thursday that he violated campaign finance laws to help the former president’s 2016 campaign.

David Pecker, the former publisher of the National Enquirer and former CEO of its parent company, American Media Inc., told the court in Trump’s hush-money trial that he knew he had to obey campaign finance laws but still failed to report $150,000 to the FEC. That sum came from a payment he issued via Trump’s former fixer Michael Cohen to Playboy model Karen McDougal for the rights to her story regarding her alleged affair with Trump.

“We didn’t want the story to embarrass Mr. Trump, or embarrass or hurt the campaign,” Pecker testified.

Pecker claimed he knew that failing to report the payment would skirt campaign finance regulations due to an earlier catch-and-kill effort that aided Arnold Schwarzenegger’s campaign for California governor. After Schwarzenegger announced his candidacy, several women came to the National Enquirer with their stories—but even after scooping them up, one story leaked to the press, forcing Pecker to learn he had run afoul of campaign finance laws.

“Based on what happened 14 years ago, I wanted to be comfortable that the agreement we were going to prepare for Karen McDougal met all the obligations with respect to a campaign contribution,” Pecker said, explaining that his company had consulted an election law attorney on the matter before signing the contract with McDougal.

The week has been full of admissions by Pecker, who has been offered an immunity deal by the government in exchange for his full cooperation in the Trump trial.

On Tuesday, Pecker admitted that he and Trump had coordinated not just to publish positive coverage of his friend ahead of the 2016 election, but also to publish negative coverage of other presidential candidates. In doing so, Pecker practically admitted to the catch-and-kill media scheme that Trump has repeatedly denied.

Trump had asked “what can I do and what my magazines can do to help the campaign,” Pecker recalled to the court. Pecker had responded that he could “publish positive stories about Trump” and “negative stories about his opponents.”

Trump is accused of using Cohen to sweep an affair with porn star Stormy Daniels under the rug ahead of the 2016 presidential election. He faces 34 felony charges in this case for allegedly falsifying business records with the intent to further an underlying crime. Trump has pleaded not guilty on all counts.

Donald Trump is going to have to pony up $83 million to E. Jean Carroll after all, after a judge  on Thursday struck down Trump’s latest attempt to get a new trial. 

Judge Lewis Kaplan, who presided over both of Trump’s trials against Carroll, denied the former president’s appeal of the verdict in Carroll’s second defamation lawsuit A jury determined that Trump owed Carroll $83 million in damages for defamation.

Trump is unlikely to be happy about losing his appeal, considering how he can’t stop bashing Carroll even with multiple legal judgments against him for it. Kaplan even felt it necessary to warn the jury not to reveal their participation in the trial, after the court ruling in January.

Trump has also appealed the Carroll ruling to the Second Circuit court. That decision is pending. Kaplan’s Thursday ruling is just the latest in a series of setbacks in Trump’s attempt to avoid paying Carroll damages.

The former president was found guilty of defaming Carroll after she revealed that he sexually abused her in the mid-1990s. A jury awarded Carroll $7.3 million for damage to her reputation, $11 million for emotional harm, and $65 million for punitive damages. Carroll has big plans for the money: giving it to something Trump hates. 

“If it will cause him pain for me to give money to certain things, that’s my intent,” Carroll told Good Morning America in January. “Well, perhaps a fund for the women who have been sexually assaulted by Donald Trump.”

At least 26 other women have accused Trump of some kind of sexual misconduct, but Carroll’s case was the first to get into a courtroom, and twice at that: In May 2023, another jury found Trump guilty of defaming Carroll and liable for sexual abuse and battery against her.

The decision came as Trump was in court for his hush-money trial in Manhattan, where he faces 34 felony charges for allegedly falsifying business records with the intent to further an underlying crime. The court heard testimony from tabloid magnate David Pecker Wednesday and Thursday, and adult film actress Stormy Daniels is scheduled to testify later Thursday. 

Arizona has indicted nearly two dozen of Donald Trump’s allies and affiliates for their alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election, including Trump White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and attorneys Jenna Ellis, John Eastman, Christina Bobb, and Rudy Giuliani.

But while most of his co-defendants chose to stay relatively mum in wake of Wednesday’s announcement, Giuliani seemed to immediately forgo his right to remain silent, regardless of whether his bombastic take on the felony charges could be used against him.

“It’s not a coincidence that this is happening as we approach the summer before the election,” Giuliani’s spokesman Ted Goodman wrote in a statement, doubling down on exactly what the former New York City mayor was charged for. “The continued weaponization of our justice system should concern every American as it does permanent, irrevocable harm to the country.”

All in all, the indictment charges 18 individuals, some of whose names have been redacted, with orchestrating a scheme to use fake electors to flip Arizona’s 2020 election results over to Trump. It also names Trump as an unindicted co-conspirator. All of the indicted individuals are facing the same slew of charges, which includes counts for conspiracy, forgery, fraudulent schemes and practices, and fraudulent schemes and artifices—the last of which holds a potential sentence of up to five years in prison.

“In Arizona, and the United States, the people elected Joseph Biden as President on November 3, 2020,” the indictment reads. “Unwilling to accept this fact, Defendants and unindicted co-conspirators schemed to prevent the lawful transfer of the presidency” to give Trump a consecutive presidential term “against the will of Arizona’s voters.”