Tabloid publisher David Pecker testifies in Trump hush money trial

Former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker took the witness stand in Donald Trump's criminal hush money trial on Monday to testify about his role in what prosecutors say was a scheme to suppress negative information about Trump ahead of the 2016 election. New York prosecutors say Trump broke the law and corrupted the election by falsifying business records to cover up a payment to porn star Stormy Daniels to keep quiet.

Former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker took the witness stand in Donald Trump's criminal hush money trial on Monday to testify about his role in what prosecutors say was a scheme to suppress negative information about Trump ahead of the 2016 election. On the trial's first day, Pecker, 72, explained the basics of tabloid journalism and said his company often paid for stories. He did not discuss his interactions with Trump but is expected to return on Tuesday for more questioning.

Pecker is the first witness in the first-ever trial of a former U.S. president. New York prosecutors say Trump broke the law and corrupted the election by falsifying business records to cover up a payment to porn star Stormy Daniels to keep quiet. Trump has pleaded not guilty and his lawyers say he did not commit any crimes.

"There's nothing wrong with trying to influence an election. It's called democracy. They put something sinister on this idea, as if it's a crime," Trump lawyer Todd Blanche said. Blanche spoke shortly after prosecutors told jurors that Trump broke the law by deceiving voters.

"This case is about a conspiracy and a cover-up, an illegal conspiracy to undermine the integrity of a presidential election, and then the steps that Donald Trump took to conceal that illegal election fraud," prosecutor Matthew Colangelo said. Colangelo told the jury that they would hear Trump working out the details of the scheme in recorded conversations.

Both lawyers made their opening statements in what may be the only one of Trump's four criminal prosecutions to go to trial before his Nov. 5 election rematch with Democratic President Joe Biden. Colangelo told jurors that Trump engaged in a "catch and kill" conspiracy with Pecker and his former lawyer Michael Cohen to help him defeat Democrat Hillary Clinton.

That included payments to women who said they had sexual encounters with Trump, including a $130,000 payment to porn star Stormy Daniels, at a time when he was facing other revelations of sexual misbehavior, he said. Trump has pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business records. Prosecutors say he falsified checks and invoices to disguise $420,000 in payments to Cohen as legal services, when in fact they were meant to reimburse him for paying off Daniels. Trump denies having an encounter with Daniels.

Wearing a blue tie and dark blue suit, the Republican presidential candidate watched Pecker's testimony and occasionally spoke to his lawyer. A Secret Service agent wearing an earpiece sat directly behind him. The case is seen by many legal experts as the least consequential of the Trump prosecutions. A guilty verdict would not bar him from taking office, but it could hurt his candidacy.

Reuters/Ipsos polling shows half of independent voters and one in four Republicans say they would not vote for Trump if he is convicted of a crime. 'CATCH AND KILL'

According to prosecutors, Pecker agreed during an August 2015 meeting with Trump and Cohen to act as the campaign's "eyes and ears" by looking out for negative stories about Trump. "Pecker was not acting as a publisher, he was acting as a co-conspirator," Colangelo said.

American Media, which published the National Enquirer, in 2018 admitted that it paid $150,000 to former Playboy magazine model Karen McDougal for rights to her story about a months-long affair with Trump in 2006 and 2007. American Media said it worked "in concert" with Trump's campaign, and it never published a story. The tabloid reached a similar deal to pay $30,000 to a doorman who was seeking to sell a story about Trump allegedly fathering a child out of wedlock, which turned out to be false, according to prosecutors.

Trump has said the payments were personal and did not violate election law. He has also denied the affair with McDougal. In the New York trial, Trump is charged with falsely recording his 2017 reimbursement of Cohen for the Daniels payment as a legal expense in his real estate company's books. Prosecutors say he did so to conceal the fact that Cohen's payment exceeded the $2,700 limit on individual campaign contributions at the time.

Testimony about those payments could help prosecutors establish that Cohen's payment to Daniels was part of a broader pattern. Prosecutors plan to call at least 20 witnesses total, according to Trump's defense team. The trial could last six to eight weeks.

Justice Juan Merchan ruled that prosecutors would be able to ask Trump, if he testifies, about other court cases that found he engaged in business fraud and defamed writer E. Jean Carroll after she accused him of rape. Trump faces three other criminal indictments stemming from his efforts to overturn his 2020 election defeat and his handling of classified documents after leaving the White House in 2021.

Trump has pleaded not guilty in those cases, and he portrays all of them as a broad-based effort by Biden's Democratic allies to undercut his campaign. Merchan, who is overseeing the hush money trial, imposed a limited gag order on Trump after he criticized witnesses, prosecutors, the judge and his daughter. Prosecutors are pressing Merchan to penalize Trump for violating that order.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)