Day 3 Of The Trump Trial. More Contempt. An AG In The Pocket, And “This Story Is True”

-Prosecutors argued that Trump has violated the gag order four times since Tuesday’s hearing on potential contempt fines for violating the gag order. The judge has still not ruled on that contempt motion. He set a hearing for 2:15 next Wednesday on the additional contempt allegations.

-Among the alleged gag order violations was Trump telling reporters that current witness David Pecker was being “very nice.” Prosecutors assert, “this is a message to Pecker, be nice. It’s a message to others, I have a platform and I can talk about you and I can say things like this, or I can say things like I said about Cohen.”

-National Enquirer owner David Pecker resumed testimony in the case continuing direct examination from prosecutors.

-Pecker’s testimony focused on his hush money payments to Karen McDougal. Pecker admitted the purpose of those payments was to help Trump’s Campaign.

-Pecker testified that in a call with Trump that Trump showed awareness of the plan to purchase McDougal’s silence and described McDougal as a “nice girl.”

-Pecker admitted that he knew the payments to McDougal were illegal campaign contributions.

-Pecker admitted he expected to be repaid by Trump or the Trump Organization, but that he never was. Why he was never repaid has been an enduring mystery to me for years. Today did not answer the question. Pecker cryptically stated that after talking with his attorneys he decided he didn’t want to be paid back.

-Three days before the election Trump called Pecker furious that the Wall Street Journal published a story reporting on the catch and kill deal with McDougal. A very upset Trump said, “How could this happen? I thought you had this under control. You or one of your people have leaked the story.” Pecker tried to assure Trump they were not the source of the leak. Pecker quickly put out a false statement denying any hush money deal with McDougal.

-When asked why he lied about the McDougal payment in response to a Wall Street Journal story Pecker answered, “I wanted to protect my company, I wanted to protect myself and I wanted, also, to protect Donald Trump.”

-Pecker testified that Trump’s refusal to pay him for McDougal did impact when Stormy Daniels came to him with her story. He told the Trump Team he would not pay Daniels because he had already paid for McDougal and the doorman and he was “not a bank.” Thus, Pecker told Dylan Howard to try and get Trump himself to buy the Daniels story.

-The jury was shown a text exchange between Pecker and the National Enquirer’s editor, Dylan Howard, discussing how to handle the Stormy Daniels story. In it Howard told Pecker, “I know denials were made in the past but this story is true.”

-Pecker testified that he believed Trump wanted these stories killed to protect his campaign, not his family. Pecker stated that in talks with Trump and Cohen that Trump’s family “was never mentioned” but the campaign frequently was.

-In a January 2017 meeting at Trump Tower with Trump and various close advisors Trump waited for the others to leave and asked Pecker, “how’s our girl doing?” referring to McDougal. Pecker answered that she was doing fine. Trump thanked Pecker for “handling the McDougal situation.”

-Later in the Spring of 2017 Pecker was invited to the White House and as they walked in the Rose Garden Trump asked Pecker, “how’s Karen doing?” referring to McDougal.

-In March 2018 Trump called Pecker angry about an interview McDougal had just had with Anderson Cooper. Trump told Pecker that he thought they had a deal where “she can’t give any interviews or be on any television shows.” For the first time Pecker told Trump he had released McDougal from the deal some time after the election. “He was very upset, he couldn’t understand why I did it,” Pecker testified.

-Trump continued to work it. Trump arranged a call between his Press Secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, and Hope Hicks with Pecker. Pecker told them he was looking for a way to extend McDougal’s deal to cut off any more TV interviews. Sanders and Hicks agreed that was a good idea. But when Pecker threatened to enforce the deal McDougal threatened to sue and Pecker settled, formally releasing her from the hush money agreement.

— It should be noted that Sarah Huckabee Sanders was, at the time, a public employee paid for by the American taxpayer. Her involvement in this hush money scheme was inappropriate and possibly illegal.

-In 2018 the FEC sent Pecker a letter about potential irregularities. Pecker called Cohen stating he was worried. Cohen replied, “why are you worried? Jeff Sessions is the AG and Donald Trump has him in his pocket.”

-Trump’s attorneys got a chance to start cross examination of Pecker for about an hour. They didn’t do much, mostly just trying to pick at inconsistencies in memory between his interviews with FBI agents and his testimony.

Court will resume tomorrow morning.