‘Catch and kill’: former newspaper director describes on trial how he ‘buried’ bad stories for Trump | World

Former tabloid director testifies in Trump criminal trial

Former director of the sensationalist newspaper “National Enquirer” David Pecker testified this Tuesday (23) at the trial of Donald Trump and described how the publication was an arm of the 2016 presidential campaign.

According to Pecker, the newspaper had the practice of “catching and killing” stories that could be harmful to the businessman in the elections in which Trump defeated Hillary Clinton and became president.

This is the first criminal trial of a United States president. Trump is accused of voter fraud in the 2016 elections by trying to hide from the public the sexual encounters he allegedly had with porn actress Stormy Daniels (read more below).

David Pecker, the tabloid’s former director, stated that used the “National Enquirer” newspaper to suppress stories that could harm Trump’s election campaign. He stated that the newspaper paid two people who were offering stories about Trump’s sexual affairs, but never published the reports –This practice is known as “catch and kill”.

“When someone is running for an office like this (president), it’s very common for women to call a publication like the ‘National Enquirer’ to try to sell their stories,” Pecker told the court.

The decision to “bury” bad stories for the politician was taken after a meeting in 2015, in which Pecker told Trump that the newspaper would help him in two ways:

• I would publish stories favorable to Trump.
• I would watch out for people who could harm you.

Pecker said the National Enquirer paid former Playboy model Karen McDougal, who claimed she had a relationship with Trump between 2006 and 2007.

The former director of the newspaper said he “bought” the story after Trump himself refused to pay the money to the former model (the former president denies having an affair with her).

According to Pecker, at the time, Trump said that “whenever you do something like that, it ends up getting out.”

The company that controls the newspaper, American Media, said in 2018 that it paid US$150,000 for the story.

The newspaper also paid $30,000 for a story offered by Dino Sajudin, a doorman at Trump Tower. According to him, Trump had a child out of wedlock with a domestic worker. Pecker said the story ultimately wasn’t true.

The former director also stated that the amounts of these two payments were much higher than what the “National Enquirer” used to pay.

“I made the decision to buy the story because of the potential embarrassment it would cause to the campaign and to Mr. Trump,” Pecker said in court.

Pecker is expected to testify again on Thursday.

For prosecutors, the concealment of these stories of extramarital affairs during the 2016 elections, when Trump was already accused of sexual misconduct, helped Trump deceive voters.

This is the first criminal trial in which a former US president is a defendant. According to prosecutors, Trump falsified business records to cover up a $130,000 payment to the porn star Stormy Daniels in 2016 for keeping secret a sexual encounter she claims they had 10 years earlier. Trump pleaded not guilty and denies that the meeting took place.

Prosecutor Matthew Colangelo claims there was a “planned, coordinated, long-running conspiracy to influence the 2016 election, to help Trump get elected through illegal expenditures to silence people who had something bad to say about his behavior. It was electoral fraud, pure and simple“.

Trump stated that These payments were personal and do not violate any laws.

On Monday, the jury, made up of 12 people, began to hear the arguments of the prosecutors who filed the complaint against Trump, who went to court to participate in the session.

Prosecutors described Trump’s payment to Stormy Daniels as a criminal scheme to deceive voters at a time when Trump was facing other accusations of sexual misconduct.

Colangelo told the jury they would hear Trump discussing details of the scheme in recorded conversations and would see an extensive paper trail to support witnesses’ testimony.

Trump’s lawyer told the jury that the former president committed no crime and said Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg should not have brought the case.

“There’s nothing wrong with trying to influence an election. It’s called democracy. They put something sinister into this idea, like it’s a crime,” said Trump lawyer Todd Blanche.

Porn actress case: understand trial that could land Trump in prison

In total, there are 34 charges, each of which is punishable by up to 4 years in prison (see questions and answers about the case below). Donald Trump has declared himself innocent and claims he is the victim of a “witch hunt” by Democrats to prevent him from returning to the White House.

He is the only pre-candidate of the Republican Party in the presidential elections and will compete with Joe Biden, current president of the USA, from the Democratic Party. Elections take place on November 5th.

According to the accusation, the Republican paid US$130,000 (R$660,000 at current prices) in the final stretch of the 2016 presidential campaign to former porn actress Stormy Daniels so that she would remain silent about an extramarital sexual relationship that the two they had in 2006 (Trump has always denied that he had an affair with Stormy Daniels).

These actions themselves are not crimesbut the prosecution claims that Trump disguised this payment as if it were a disbursement to his lawyer. In other words, the former president is being tried for hiding this amount in tax records.

The prosecution claims that this money, in fact, it was a campaign expensesince the final purpose of the payment was to prevent information that could hinder him in the final stretch of the 2016 elections. Therefore, according to the accusation, Trump hid campaign expenses and should also be tried for that.

The person who made the payment was Michael Cohen, then Trump’s personal lawyer — and now his opponent.

As there was a group of people involved in the scheme, there is also an accusation of conspiracy.

It was “a conspiracy to rig the presidential election and lie in business documents to cover it up,” according to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. In New York, prosecutors are elected to office; he is from the Democratic Party, Trump’s opponent.

The defense claims that Trump made the payments because he was being extorted.

The indictment, however, says that this was a recurring practice by Trump, as he used this same scheme two other times — to pay a doorman and another woman with whom he allegedly had a relationship.

For prosecutors, American voters were deceived when he won the 2016 presidential election against Hillary Clinton.