Tabloid publisher describes deals to buy silence in Trump trial
In the midst of the 2016 presidential campaign, Donald J. Trump called David Pecker, publisher of The National Enquirer. The candidate was seeking advice about a former Playboy model who was trying to sell the story of her affair with him, Mr. Pecker told jurors in Mr. Trump’s Manhattan criminal trial.
Mr. Pecker suggests a way to silence model Karen McDougall. “I think the story should be bought,” he told Mr Trump. “And I believe you should buy it.”
The episode involving Ms. McDougal led to the second of three hush-money deals that prosecutors say Mr. Trump and his associates arranged to suppress negative news stories during the 2016 election. Mr. Pecker was involved in all of them, including the final deal in which Mr. Trump’s lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen, paid former porn star Stormy Daniels $130,000.
Mr Trump has been charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records to conceal payments to Daniels in an effort to influence the election. This is the first criminal trial against an American President. Mr Pecker, the trial’s first witness, began testifying about Ms McDougall on Tuesday before the trial’s midweek recess and continued on Thursday.
The Inquirer’s parent company, American Media Inc. paid $150,000 to buy the rights to his story and then bury him, in what became known as “catch and kill”. In an agreement to avoid federal prosecution, the company later admitted that it had tried to illegally influence the election.
Ms. McDougall was Playboy’s Playmate of the Year for 1998. She has said that she met Mr. Trump at the Playboy Mansion in June 2006 and they began a 10-month affair.
As Mr Trump’s campaign gained momentum, Ms McDougal, who lives in Arizona, saw a chance to revive a stellar modeling career. In June 2016, she hired a lawyer to represent her in the sale of her story. The lawyer contacted Dylan Howard, the editor of The Enquirer, who alerted Mr. Pecker.
Early in the campaign, Mr. Pecker, Mr. Cohen and Mr. Trump met at Trump Tower and discussed helping to identify Mr. Trump and dig up dirt about him. Mr Pekar said he had promised to be the “eyes and ears” of the campaign.
After learning of Ms. McDougall’s claims, she called Mr. Cohen, who insisted that her story was false. But Mr. Pecker suggested looking into it and Mr. Cohen agreed, the publisher testified. Mr. Pecker sent his editor to meet with Ms. McDougall and her lawyer in Los Angeles.
Mr Cohen was eager for updates and asked Mr Pecker to communicate via an encrypted messaging app to ensure confidentiality.
“Every day I would get several calls: ‘When is he going? When will he know? Is it done yet?” Mr. Pecker testified. He said he told Mr Cohen to rest.
At their meeting, Mr Howard briefed Ms McDougall, who had expressed reservations about coming forward now and had no solid documentation of a case. Mr. Pecker recalled in his testimony Thursday that Ms. McDougal “said she did not want to be the next Monica Lewinsky.”
In a call after the meeting, she testified, Mr. Cohen denied that an affair had occurred, but said he would look into it.
The Inquirer decided not to buy his story for now.
He changed. Mr. Trump called Mr. Pecker for advice, the publisher testified, but rejected Mr. Pecker’s suggestion that he buy his story himself.
“I don’t buy stories,” Mr. Trump said, telling the publisher, “Whenever you do something like this, it always comes up.” Mr. Pecker said Thursday that Mr. Trump also described Ms. McDougal as “a nice girl,” which shows he really knows her.
Mr. Pecker recalled a discussion with Mr. Cohen on the jury about who would pay Ms. McDougall for the rights to her story. At first, Mr. Cohen promised that Mr. Trump would pay, the publisher said, but then asked Mr. Pecker to do so, promising to reimburse him later.
When Ms. McDougal began talks with ABC News about telling her story on air, the seriousness began to grow, with the American media making an offer. Her company agreed to pay Ms. McDougall $150,000 for the rights in early August 2016.
Asked by prosecutor Joshua Steinglass on Thursday whether The Enquirer ever intended to publish Ms. McDougal’s story, Mr. Pecker replied, “No, we did not.”
But Mr. Pecker said he wanted to be careful not to violate campaign finance law, after an experience years ago when he suppressed stories about Arnold Schwarzenegger during his successful run for governor of California.
So Mr. Pecker was careful to make sure the McDougall deal included the services she would perform for the company, he said. Its purpose was to conceal its purpose. The contract guaranteed that American media would place her on two magazine covers and have the right to publish her fitness column.
Despite Mr. Pecker’s claims that he had structured the deal to avoid violating campaign finance law, his company later admitted doing so in a 2018 non-prosecution agreement with federal prosecutors.
After Ms. McDougall was paid, Mr. Cohen tried to make good on his promise to repay the cost of the deal, negotiating for Mr. Trump to use shell companies to buy the rights to his story from Mr. Pecker’s company. of. Mr Cohen secretly taped Mr Trump talking about that possibility.
“So what do we have to pay for this? A fifty?” Mr. Trump asked on the recording. (The actual price would have been $125,000, which is less than the estimated value of the column and magazine covers Ms. McDougal would have done.)
One of Mr. Pecker’s lawyers advised Mr. Trump not to sell the rights, and the deal was never completed.
His failure to reimburse her ultimately led Mr. Pecker to refuse within weeks another hush-money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels — prompting Mr. Cohen to do so himself.