Dem
51
GOP
49
For a fourth day, former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker testified at the "hush-money" trial in New York. He appeared weary after three days of testimony on the stand, but kept answering all the questions he was asked. The jurors however, were paying attention and taking notes.
A key point was made by prosecutor Joshua Steinglass when he asked Pecker why he didn't run the story about Trump's long-running affair with Karen McDougal after paying her $150,000 for it. He said the real purpose of the payment was to protect Trump's election chances. So much for Trump's story that the payment was to protect Melania's feelings. Pecker also said that the decision to kill the story was an expensive one for his magazine, since a detailed story about Trump's affair with a Playboy model would have sold hundreds of thousands of copies. Pecker also said that his contract with McDougal that specified that she would appear on the cover of the magazine twice and write a fitness column for it were just included to have an explanation of what the $150,000 payment was for.
Pecker also admitted that he knew paying McDougal to keep quiet was a violation of campaign finance laws. When the feds caught on, he agreed to a deal in which the company would pay a fine of $187,500 for the violation. Pecker finished his testimony just after lunch. He was a valuable witness for the prosecution because he established that he, Trump, and Michael Cohen conspired to illegally influence the election. This could be the underlying crime that cooking the books tried to hide. Pecker was a credible witness and is not a convicted felon, so his testimony may ultimately be more valuable than Cohen's. He spent 10 hours on the stand in all.
Then came the second witness, Rhona Graff, Trump's assistant, who worked for him from 1987 to her retirement in April 2021. She was often the conduit between Trump and others. On the stand, she was loyal to a fault. She said that the Trump Organization was a stimulating, exciting, fascinating place to work and that Trump as a "fair" and "respectful" boss. She noted that Stormy Daniels was once in the office. She also noted that Daniels' phone number was in her office computer. Graff was on the stand only 30 minutes. Nothing she said is likely to affect the outcome of the trial. This could be related to the fact that Trump is paying her lawyers.
The third witness was Garry Farro, a private client adviser at Flagstar Bank (formerly First Republic Bank). He worked with Michael Cohen. He said that Cohen was not a difficult client. One of the things he did for Cohen is open a bank account for Cohen's LLC, Resolution Consultants. It was Cohen's intention to use that LLC to funnel a payment to McDougal to buy her story, but the deal didn't go through, so in the end Pecker paid her off. No money ever went into that account. Then Cohen opened a second account, for Essential Consultants LLC. This was the account that paid Stormy Daniels the $130,000 in hush money.
When it was time to stop the trial on Friday, Trump told reporters that the whole case was politically motivated. Then he went back to Mar-a-Lago. Monday is a day off. The trial will continue Tuesday with more testimony from Farro.
A new SSRS poll shows that 34% of Americans think that Trump is being treated more harshly than other defendants and 34% think he is being treated more leniently. More importantly, a quarter of Trump supporters say that a conviction may make them reconsider their support for Trump. (V)