American businessman David Pecker, former boss of the New York sensationalist newspaper National Enquirerconfirmed this Tuesday, under oath, that he paid to keep secret information that could have harmed Donald Trump in the 2016 election campaign, and that he published “retouched news” with the aim of attacking the former US President’s political opponents .
The testimony of Pecker, 72, is a central piece in the Manhattan District Attorney’s indictment against Trump, who is on trial in a case related to the payment for silence of a former pornographic film actress during the 2016 campaign.
According to the indictment, Trump violated New York’s anti-fraud laws in 2017, when he entered into the accounts of his company, the Trump Organization, an expense of 130 thousand dollars (122 thousand euros) which was recorded as fees paid to his lawyer at the time, Michael Cohen.
The indictment states that the amount was used by Cohen in 2016 — just days before the election — to pay for the silence of a former pornographic film actress, Stormy Daniels, who threatened to say in public that she had had a romantic relationship with Trump in 2006, at a time when Melania Trump, the current wife of the former US President, was pregnant.
To obtain Trump’s fraud conviction, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office will have to demonstrate that the forgery was made intentionally and with the aim of hiding the payment to Daniels — a payment that, according to the prosecution, violated New York law. by silencing information that could be important for the voting decision.
With Cohen’s blessing
It is in this context that the testimony of Pecker — and Cohen’s, which will be heard later — is essential to convince jurors that Trump was aware of everything that happened between his campaign and the National Enquirer.
This Tuesday, on the second day of testimony, Pecker did not disappoint the prosecution. According to the former boss of the New York tabloid, Trump and Cohen approached him in August 2015 — a few weeks after Trump announced his candidacy for the White House — to ask him what he could do to promote his presidential candidacy.
“Cohen would call me and tell me he wanted me to publish a negative story about a certain person — Ted Cruz, for example,” Pecker said, referring to the Texas senator who ran against Trump in the 2016 Republican primary. “He would send us information about Ted Cruz, or Ben Carson, or Marco Rubio, and we would tweak the story.”
In 2016, the National Enquirer made several front page headlines aimed at Trump’s opponents who were standing out in the polls during the primaries, such as Cruz and Carson.
This Tuesday, Manhattan prosecutors displayed copies of some of those headlines in the courtroom, including “Clumsy surgeon Ben Carson forgot to sponge a patient’s brain!” and “Ted Cruz Embarrassed by a Porn Star”; according to Pecker, these and other titles were only published after Cohen’s approval.
According to the judge, Trump’s trial should end at the end of May.
If found guilty, the former US President — the first to be tried on a criminal charge — could be sentenced to a maximum of four years in prison. Due to his age (77 years old) and the fact that he has no criminal record, it is likely that he will not be required to serve an actual prison sentence if he is convicted.
