NEW YORK — Defense lawyers in Donald Trump’s secret trial are set Friday to investigate an account of the former National Enquirer editor and his efforts to shield Trump from negative stories during the 2016 election.
David Pecker will return to the witness stand for a fourth day as defense lawyers try to find fault with his testimony, which he described as having helped bury embarrassing stories that Trump feared could harm his campaign.
So far, Pecker has painted a tawdry portrait of tabloid “catch and kill” schemes – capturing a potentially damaging story by buying the rights to it and then killing it through agreements that prevent the paid person from telling the story to anyone else. person.
The interrogation, which began on Thursday, will cap an important week in the criminal cases the former president faces as he tries to reclaim the White House in November.
The accusations center on payments of $130,000 that Trump’s company made to his then lawyer, Michael Cohen. He paid this amount on Trump’s behalf to prevent porn actress Stormy Daniels from going public with her allegations of a sexual encounter with Trump a decade earlier. Trump denied that the meeting took place.
Prosecutors say Trump obscured the true nature of these payments and falsely recorded them as legal expenses. He has pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.
The case is the first criminal trial of a former US president and the first of four cases against Trump to reach a jury.
At the moment:
— Key moments from Supreme Court arguments on Donald Trump’s immunity claims
– Trading Trump: Truth Social’s first month of trading sent investors on a ride
— These people were accused of interfering in the 2020 election. Some are still in politics today
– Key players: who’s who in Donald Trump’s hush money criminal trial
— The case of silence is just one of Trump’s legal cases. I see the others here
Here are the latest:
Even by the National Enquirer’s standards, its former editor David Pecker’s testimony in Donald Trump’s secret trial this week revealed a startling level of corruption at America’s best-known tabloid and may one day be seen as the moment when that he actually died.
“There’s zero credibility,” said Lachlan Cartwright, executive editor of the Enquirer from 2014 to 2017. “Whatever kind of credibility I had has been completely undermined by what happened in court this week.”
On Thursday, Pecker returned to the witness stand to tell more about the deal he made to boost Trump’s 2016 presidential bid, oust his rivals and silence any revelations that might have harmed him.
A change in the court calendar means Donald Trump will not be forced to leave the campaign trail next week to attend a hearing in his criminal trial in New York.
Judge Juan M. Merchan moved a hearing into alleged violations of the former president’s gag order to next Thursday, avoiding a conflict with campaign events scheduled for next Wednesday.
Merchan had initially scheduled the hearing for next Wednesday, a normal day off from the trial. Trump is scheduled to hold campaign events that day in Michigan and Wisconsin. His lawyers asked the judge not to hold any proceedings on Wednesdays so he could campaign.
The hearing – now scheduled for 9:30am next Thursday, May 2 – concerns a request by the prosecution that Trump be penalized for violating his gag order this week on four separate occasions.
The order prohibits Trump from commenting on witnesses and others connected to the case. Merchan is already considering holding Trump in contempt of court and fining him up to $10,000 for other alleged gag order violations.
This story originally appeared on ABCNews.go.com read the full story
