Florida Judge Jeff Swartz praised former National Enquirer editor David Pecker as an “excellent” first witness in former President Trump’s trial, saying he was “incredibly credible.”
“I think David Pecker was an excellent choice for the first witness,” Swartz said during his Saturday appearance on CNN. “He set the stage and set the whole scene for the jury.”
“And he was actually really good at the interrogation,” he continued. “I don’t think he was actually impeached in a really serious way. I think people will look at his testimony and start building around it. I think the jury paid attention to him in all aspects, they pay a lot of attention to him. And I think he was incredibly trustworthy. And I think that really contributed a lot to the prosecution.”
Swartz, the law professor, applauded Pecker’s performance during questioning, noting that Trump’s lawyers did “very little” to undermine his credibility.
“But when it got really intense, when it all came down to Trump and Hillary [Clinton], who were running for president, things got really intense at AMI and they ran a lot of stories beyond what they used to run,” Swartz said. “I think it was also pretty clear that this was part of what needed to be done to help the campaign.”
Pecker was chosen as the first witness in Trump’s first criminal trial. His testimony this week, spanning four days of trial, shed more light on the National Enquirer’s role in evaporating negative stories about the former president and publishing negative stories about his enemies that were often untrue.
“Did you suppress the stories to help a presidential candidate,” prosecutor Joshua Steinglass asked during the redirect examination, with the candidate in reference being Trump.
“Yes, I did,” Pecker said.
The second witness to testify was Rhona Graff, the former president’s longtime executive assistant.
As prosecutors continued to build their case against the former president, Swartz argued that they should “start dealing with more records to help Michael Cohen.”
“I think they’re also going to start bringing in other people who basically work on the campaign to set the stage again, to know what Mr. Trump’s attitude was and his anger that he exhibited, and his fear that things would turn out the way they are related. to the campaign and the discussions that took place in relation to the campaign that set the stage for Michael Cohen to end it,” he said.
Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
This story originally appeared on thehill.com read the full story
