Pecker at hush-money trial says Trump feared trysts would hurt image, but didn’t mention Melania

Donald Trump never mentioned worrying about his wife getting wind of his alleged trysts with porn star Stormy Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal after announcing his bid for the presidency — only his future in politics, a Manhattan jury heard Thursday during explosive testimony at the former president’s hush-money trial.

During his third day on the witness stand, the former CEO of American Media, David Pecker, explained the motivation for the “catch-and-kill” scheme he helped carry out for Trump: “We didn’t want the story to embarrass Mr. Trump or embarrass or hurt the campaign.”

Pecker described a high-stakes scramble to silence women who claimed Trump cheated on his wife with them in the lead-up to the election and being showered with gratitude from the then-president after it appeared to succeed. The hush-money scheme was part of a broader effort to use stories in the National Enquirer and other AMI publications to advance Trump’s political brand, prosecutors allege.

Pecker answered with a simple “no” when Assistant District Attorney Joshua Steinglass asked him if the defendant ever expressed concern about what Melania Trump or his ex-wife, Ivanka, would think of his affairs after announcing his candidacy for president.

Prosecutors displayed a January 2017 black-and-white photo of Pecker and Trump walking by the White House Rose Garden, where Pecker testified the then-president invited him as a “thank you” and asked about the former Playboy model Pecker paid $150,000 to silence.

“As we walked out, President Trump asked me, ‘How is, eh, how is Karen doing?” Pecker recalled. “So I said, ‘She’s doing well. She’s quiet. Everything’s going good.”

The longtime publisher walked the jury through how he worked closely with Trump’s ex-fixer, Michael Cohen. They arranged for his company to pay off McDougal, making it look like a contract for her professional services, and for Cohen to pay him back through a shell company. The model has long claimed she and Trump had a 10-month affair, shortly after his marriage to Melania and the birth of their son, Barron Trump.

Earlier this week, Pecker said the scheme to bury unflattering stories about presidential candidate Trump and elevate hit jobs about his opponents was devised at an August 2015 meeting at Trump Tower attended by him, Trump and Cohen. Pecker agreed to publish pro-Trump stories while working to hide unsavory ones, taking them “off the market” by purchasing the exclusive rights to ensure they never got published in a scheme known as “catch-and-kill.”

On Thursday, Pecker, who kept calling Trump “the boss,” said that as the election grew near, he began to worry about his legal liability.

Steinglass displayed for the jury an invoice dated Aug. 6, 2016, that listed Pecker’s AMI as the subsidiary and McDougal’s lawyer, Keith Davidson, as the vendor. The plan was for AMI to report part of it as editorial expenses for articles written by McDougal in Pecker’s publications and to bill Cohen’s shell company $125,000 for the lifetime rights to McDougal’s story.

Whenever Pecker voiced worries about the arrangement, he said Cohen told him, “Why worry? I’m your friend. The boss will take care of it.”

Pecker said though the payback deal was signed, it was never executed. After speaking with AMI’s general counsel, the publisher decided it was legally too risky and Pecker would, instead, eat the debt and tell Cohen to “rip up” the agreement.

“He was very, very, angry. Very upset. Screaming, basically, at me,” Pecker recalled Cohen’s reaction in October 2016, quoting the fixer telling him, “The boss is going to be very angry at you.”

But Pecker said he didn’t budge, nor would he comply with Cohen’s wishes to pay off Daniels after she came forward, as he was afraid the association with a porn star would hurt his media brand.

“I am not a bank,” Pecker recalled telling Cohen, who said Trump would be furious.

Taking Pecker’s advice, Cohen ultimately paid Daniels $130,000. Trump has pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, alleging he covered up reimbursement to Cohen for the Daniels’ payoff to conceal a sweeping scheme to defraud the 2016 electorate.

In January 2017, Pecker saw Trump at his office at Trump Tower, where then-FBI Director James Comey and other officials were briefing the president-elect.

When the officials left, Pecker said Trump told him to stay and chat, and then explicitly thanked him for paying off McDougal and a doorman who claimed he’d fathered an illegitimate love child.

“He asked, ‘How’s Karen doing — how’s our girl — how’s my girl doing?'” Pecker quoted Trump. “I want to thank you for handling the McDougal situation.”

Pecker said he amended AMI’s deal with McDougal after The Wall Street Journal published details of the payoff to her on Nov. 4, 2016 — days before the election — saying she was getting “bombarded” with media interview requests and that he didn’t want her to levy accusations against AMI.

“Mr. Trump got very aggravated,” Pecker testified, later saying he released her from their agreement when she filed suit to exit the contract, which Trump was also “very upset” about.

Pecker said his fears grew deeper in 2018 when he got a letter from the Federal Election Commission asking about AMI. Cohen again tried to assuage his concerns, with Pecker acknowledging in court, “We committed a campaign violation.”

“He says, ‘Jeff Sessions is the attorney general and Donald Trump has him in his pocket,'” Pecker quoted Cohen as saying. “I said, ‘I’m very worried.'”

Pecker first admitted to his role in the hush-money scheme when the feds brought campaign finance charges against Cohen in the summer of 2018, leading to the fixer’s conviction, and cooperated to dodge prosecution. He discussed that case and a 2019 agreement with the Manhattan DA that granted him immunity on the condition he cooperate and testify truthfully.

The publisher said he hadn’t spoken to Trump since that year. But when asked whether he had “ill will” toward Trump, he said “quite the contrary,” adding that he had been his “mentor.”

“I still consider him a friend,” he said.

Prosecutors finished questioning Pecker toward the end of the day’s proceedings, and he spent about an hour on cross-examination with Emil Bove. The Trump lawyer pressed him on AMI’s other arrangements with the likes of Arnold Schwarzenegger, former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, golfer Tiger Woods and actor Mark Wahlberg, which Pecker called “mutually beneficial.” He said it had been “standard practice” to warn Trump about harmful stories for about 17 years.

Pecker said he never heard the phrase “catch-and-kill” before the scheme was investigated. He’s expected to continue on cross-examination Friday.

Amid news that New York’s top appeals court had overturned disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein’s conviction — which played out in 2020 in the same courtroom where Trump is on trial — Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg was notably not in attendance Thursday morning.

Before the jury was brought in, prosecutors told state Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan that Trump had violated his gag order another four times in three days, adding to 10 potential violations last week. They want the judge to hold him in contempt and fine him thousands, which Merchan said he’d address next week.

Outside the courtroom, Trump described the day as “breathtaking.”

“Breathtaking and amazing testimony. So, this is a trial that should’ve never happened, this is a case that should’ve never been filed and was really an incredible, an incredible day,” Trump said.