Who is David Pecker? Former head of National Enquirer expected as first witness in Donald Trump's trial

David Pecker, the former head of the National Enquirer's parent company, is expected to be the first witness on Monday in Donald Trump's hush money trial, to testify about how the company routinely paid for scandalous stories that it didn't publish, under what others called a "catch-and-kill" strategy.

Pecker was president and CEO of American Media Inc. (AMI) in August 2015, when he met with Trump and his personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, to “help deal with negative stories about Trump” by purchasing them and not publishing them, according to a Federal Election Commission agreement with the company.

After a lawyer for Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model who claimed an affair with Trump, contacted the National Enquirer offering her story, Pecker and Dylan Howard, the company’s vice president and chief content officer, notified Cohen, according to the FEC agreement.

In August 2016, the company paid McDougal $150,000 for her life story, including about any relationship with “any then-married man” and then didn’t publish the story, according to the FEC agreement.

In 2018, the company entered a non-prosecution agreement with the Justice Department and acknowledged the payment was “substantially more than AMI otherwise would have paid for the story” because of Cohen’s assurances the company would be repaid. The company admitted its main purpose was to prevent her story “from influencing the election” and at no time did the company “intend to publish the story.”

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and Cohen have described the payment as part of a “catch-and-kill” strategy to block derogatory information about Trump before the 2016 election. But the company denied such a strategy and claimed a First Amendment right to pay for stories that were then not published.

Cohen has since pleaded guilty and spent time in prison for a campaign finance violation for arranging a $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels, a porn actress who claimed to have had sex with Trump.

Trump, who is charged with falsifying business records, has said he was unaware of the payments to women and was paying Cohen for a non-disclosure agreement with Daniels.

AMI paid the FEC a $187,500 civil penalty on June 11, 2021.

The Justice Department granted Pecker was immunity from prosecution in August 2018.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Who is David Pecker, first witness in Donald Trump hush money trial?