NEW YORK — For a third day on Thursday, former American Media Inc. CEO David Pecker took the stand in former President Donald Trump’s criminal trial in New York to testify about the “catch and kill” scheme used to help the then-presidential candidate ahead of the 2016 election.
Court records show Pecker offered to act as the “eyes and ears” of the Trump campaign during an August 2015 meeting with Trump and Trump’s former fixer, Michael Cohen.
He testified Tuesday about buying the rights to a story being sold by a onetime Trump Tower doorman who claimed to have information about a child Trump had out of wedlock. He also touched on the purchase of a story from former Playboy model Karen McDougal, who claims to have had a nearly yearlong affair with Trump years before he ran for president.
Pecker, who as the chief editor of AMI was also the publisher of the National Enquirer, said Thursday that the tabloid initially offered McDougal $10,000 for her story after editor in chief Dylan Howard interviewed her and found her to be credible, CNN reported. However, she refused.
Later, Pecker said he told Trump that he should buy McDougal’s story “and take it off the market,” according to The New York Times. He testified that it sounded like Trump knew McDougal after he told Pecker, “Karen is a nice girl,” CNN reported.
“I believe that when Mr. Trump said that ‘she was a nice girl,’ I believe that he knew who she was,” he said.
Cohen later told Pecker to buy the story, saying, “The boss will take care of it,” according to CNN. He said he understood that to mean that Trump or the Trump Organization would ultimately foot the bill.
McDougal didn’t really want her story published, Pecker said, according to CNN.
“She said that she didn’t want to be the next Monica Lewinsky,” he said. “She wanted to restart her career.”
As part of AMI’s agreement with McDougal, dated Aug. 5, 2016, she would get a monthly column on aging and fitness in Star and OK magazines for two years and AMI would get lifetime rights to her story. The columns would be written by ghostwriters and approved by McDougal before publication, CNN reported.
He acknowledged in court that AMI never planned to publish McDougal’s story.
“No, we did not,” he said, according to the Times.
He acknowledged that he paid McDougal solely to keep her story from affecting Trump’s chances in the 2016 election, CNN reported.
“We didn’t want the story to embarrass Mr. Trump or embarrass or hurt the campaign,” Pecker testified, referring to himself and Cohen.
He said he hired a consultant to work with Cohen on the reimbursement for McDougal’s story, testifying that he didn’t want it to go through the AMI finance department, “Because I believed that payment would raise a lot of questions and issues,” CNN reported.
The deal fell apart in October as Pecker grew more concerned about the potentially unlawful nature of the scheme, according to the Times. He said that Cohen screamed at him at one point, saying “The boss is going to be very angry at you,” but he stood firm and was never reimbursed for buying McDougal’s story.
Judge has dismissed jury for the day, according to CNN. Pecker will be on the stand Friday for the fourth day, according to the Times.
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