A former tabloid executive testified Thursday that Michael Cohen, a key lawyer during Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign, assured him the “boss would take care of” the cost of buying a salacious story from Playboy model Karen McDougal.
New York prosecutors elicited the testimony from David Pecker, who ran the National Enquirer at the time, as they tried to connect Mr. Trump to an alleged scheme to pay hush money and criminally conceal it.
Mr. Pecker said he believed the McDougal story about an affair with Mr. Trump was true and would be damaging to the campaign. Yet there was a dispute about who should pay $150,000 to buy Ms. McDougal’s story.
“I said, ’Michael, why should I pay? I just paid $30,000 for the doorman story. Now you’re asking me to pay $150,000 for the Karen story, plus all of these other additional items that she wants to do,’” Mr. Pecker testified, referring to a previous effort to buy an unproven story put forward by a Trump Tower doorman.
Mr. Pecker said Mr. Cohen gave him assurances: “Don’t worry about it. I’m your friend. The boss will take care of it.”
Beyond Mr. Cohen’s assurance, prosecutors tried to tie Mr. Trump to the catch-and-kill scheme by suggesting Mr. Cohen didn’t have authority over Mr. Trump’s purse strings.
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“Every time that we went out to lunch I always paid; he never paid,” Mr. Pecker said of Mr. Cohen. “So I didn’t think that he had the authorization to buy or acquire or spend any money without Mr. Trump’s approval.”
Mr. Pecker said he believed Mr. Trump was aware of the contract with Ms. McDougal. Mr. Trump denies the affair, which allegedly unfolded in 2006 and 2007.
In early 2017, Mr. Trump asked Mr. Pecker for an update on “our girl,” meaning Ms. McDougal, according to testimony. Mr. Pecker assured Mr. Trump that she’d kept quiet.
It’s Mr. Pecker’s third day on the witness stand in Mr. Trump’s trial on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.
Prosecutors say an August 2015 agreement to push flattering stories about Mr. Trump and kill unflattering ones led to a series of payoffs and criminal attempts to conceal the payments.
Mr. Trump’s defense team says it was perfectly legal to enter nondisclosure agreements with people and influence voters and that Mr. Trump was walled off from Mr. Cohen’s 2017 efforts to document the payments because he was steeped in his job as president.
Earlier Thursday, prosecutor Christopher Conroy flagged Mr. Trump’s comment that Mr. Pecker has “been very nice,” saying it could violate the gag order by putting implicit pressure on the witness.
Judge Juan Merchan hasn’t said whether he will fine Mr. Trump for alleged violations of a gag order that barred the president from commenting about witnesses or jurors.
Asked if he’d pay any fine, Mr. Trump said, “Oh, I have no idea.”
He added, “They’ve taken my constitutional right away with a gag order, that’s all it is.”
Mr. Trump says he should be able to defend himself when future witnesses, such as Mr. Cohen, criticize him publicly.
Mr. Cohen on Wednesday said he plans to stop talking about the case until after his testimony ends.
“Despite not being the gagged defendant, out of respect for Judge Merchan and the prosecutors, I will cease posting anything about Donald on my X (formerly Twitter) account or on the Mea Culpa Podcast until after my trial testimony. See you all in a month (or more),” he wrote on X.
• This story is based in part on wire service reports.
• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.
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