Donald Trump hush money trial: Trump offered to take DNA test over love child claim
A tabloid news boss has revealed his stunning dealings with Donald Trump to silence claims about his relationships with women as he was the “most eligible bachelor”.
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A tabloid news boss warned Donald Trump during his first election campaign that women would try to sell stories about him because he was “the most eligible bachelor”, setting in train the hush money scheme at the centre of the former president’s criminal trial.
Former American Media, Inc. boss David Pecker told the Manhattan Criminal Court he offered to be Mr Trump’s “eyes and ears” at a pivotal meeting before the 2016 election which prosecutors allege led to a $US130,000 payment ($A200K) to silence a porn star’s claim of an affair.
Mr Pecker explained the “highly, highly confidential” agreement to AMI’s chief content officer Dylan Howard – an Australian journalist who was also the editor of the National Enquirer, the company’s most famous masthead – to help carry it out.
“In a presidential campaign, I was the person that thought there would be a lot of women who would come out to try and sell their stories, because Mr Trump was well known as the most eligible bachelor and dated the most beautiful women,” Mr Pecker said.
Mr Howard later learned of a Playboy model trying to sell her story of an affair with Mr Trump, which Mr Pecker encouraged the then-Republican candidate to buy.
“I don’t buy any stories … any time you do anything like this, it always gets out,” Mr Pecker said Mr Trump told him.
The ex-AMI chief’s evidence came after a fiery hearing over whether Mr Trump – the presumptive Republican candidate for this year’s election – would be punished for breaching a gag order in the historic trial, with prosecutors saying he was “angling” to be jailed.
Mr Pecker, who met Mr Trump in the late 1980s and described him as a friend, was called by prosecutors as their first witness in their bid to convince the jury that the former president falsified business records related to a hush money payment in 2016.
The former AMI chairman said his agreement with Mr Trump during his presidential run – after he had fed him stories for years from his hit TV show The Apprentice – also included running positive stories about his candidacy and negative stories on his opponents.
He told the court it was “mutually beneficial” because Mr Trump was the most popular celebrity featured in the National Enquirer.
In describing the scheme to Mr Howard, Mr Pecker said: “We’re going to try and help the campaign, and to do that I want to keep this as quiet as possible”.
HOW THE CATCH-AND-KILL DEALS WORKED
Their first “catch-and-kill” plot to buy and bury a story involved a tip from Trump Tower doorman Dino Sajudin that Mr Trump fathered an illegitimate child with his penthouse maid.
Mr Pecker told the court Mr Trump furiously denied the claim and had offered to take a DNA test to prove he was not the father.
The AMI boss said the story would have been the biggest for the National Enquirer since the death of Elvis Presley, although he was only willing to publish it after the election if it were true, a decision he agreed with Mr Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen.
After Mr Howard vetted Mr Sajudin’s tip and determined that it was false, Mr Pecker decided to pay $US30,000 ($A46,000) to the doorman to prevent him spreading the claim elsewhere, in what he admitted was a highly unusual arrangement.
Asked why he handed over the money, he told the court: “I made a decision to buy the story because of the potential embarrassment it would have to the campaign and Mr Trump.”
Mr Pecker said Mr Cohen told him when he informed him he would pay Mr Sajudin that “the boss was very pleased”.
Mr Howard later learned that former Playboy model Karen McDougal was also trying to sell her story of a year-long sexual relationship with Mr Trump.
He vetted the story on instructions from Mr Pecker and Mr Cohen, including travelling to Los Angeles to interview her, during which time the former president’s lawyer constantly called the AMI chief and became “very agitated”.
Mr Pecker told the court he encouraged Mr Trump to pay Ms McDougal but he refused.
“I don’t buy any stories … any time you do anything like this, it always gets out,” Mr Pecker said Mr Trump told him.
‘LOSING ALL CREDIBILITY’: TRUMP’S GAG ORDER FIGHT
Prior to Mr Pecker’s evidence, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office sought a $US10,000 fine for 10 alleged breaches of a gag order that prevents Mr Trump from attacking witnesses and jurors during the proceedings.
In a series of posts he shared on his social media platform Truth Social, Mr Trump called Mr Cohen a “serial perjurer”.
His former lawyer is a key witness in the case, having arranged the $US130,000 hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels on the eve of the 2016 election.
Mr Trump also called Mr Cohen and Ms Daniels “sleazebags”, and later manipulated a comment from a TV host in a post to say: “They are catching undercover liberal activists lying to the judge in order to get on the Trump jury.”
Prosecutor Chris Conroy said he was not seeking a jail term, although he said the former president appeared to be “angling for that” with actions that posed “a very real threat” to the unprecedented trial.
In a “farewell message” emailed to his supporters the night before the hearing, Mr Trump said: “If things don’t go our way, I could be thrown in jail.”
Mr Conroy told Judge Juan Merchan: “It’s clear that he knows about the order, he knows what he’s not allowed to do, and he does it anyway.”
In arguing against any sanctions, Mr Trump’s lawyer Todd Blanche struggled to respond to Judge Merchan’s questions and claimed the former president was “being very careful to comply” with the gag order.
“You’re losing all credibility with the court,” the judge responded.
He also said Mr Blanche’s arguments were “silly” and that he had “presented nothing”.
In an all-caps post on Truth Social after the hearing, Mr Trump said Judge Merchan was “highly conflicted” and had “taken away my constitutional right to free speech”.
“Everybody is allowed to talk and lie about me, but I am not allowed to defend myself,” he said, even though he had suggested he would testify during the trial.
“This is a kangaroo court, and the judge should recuse himself!”.
AUSSIE’S ALLEGED ROLE IN HUSH MONEY SCHEME LAID BARE
Donald Trump’s hush money scheme during the 2016 US election was a criminal conspiracy orchestrated with the help of an Australian journalist, prosecutors have alleged at the start of the former president’s explosive trial.
Manhattan assistant district attorney Matthew Colangelo framed the charges against Mr Trump – the first president to face a criminal trial and the presumptive Republican nominee for this year’s election – as “election fraud, pure and simple”.
Mr Trump is accused of 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up a $US130,000 payment to porn star Stormy Daniels, silencing her claim that they had a brief affair.
“This was a planned, co-ordinated, long-running conspiracy to influence the 2016 election to help Donald Trump get elected through illegal expenditure to silence people,” Mr Colangelo told the jury in his opening statement.
The conspiracy was allegedly concocted at a 2015 meeting at New York’s Trump Tower between Mr Trump, his fixer Michael Cohen, and American Media, Inc. (AMI) chairman David Pecker, with Mr Colangelo saying the tabloid empire boss agreed to act as the Trump campaign’s “eyes and ears”.
In turn, the prosecutor said Australian Dylan Howard – AMI’s chief content officer and the editor-in-chief of the National Enquirer, its flagship masthead – acted as Mr Pecker’s “eyes and ears” in the “catch-and-kill” scheme to buy and bury negative stories about Mr Trump.
Mr Pecker told Mr Howard “about this Trump Tower conspiracy and he enlisted his help in carrying it out”, Mr Colangelo said, adding that it also included publishing “headline after headline that extolled the defendant’s virtues” and stories that attacked his opponents.
After his 2016 victory, Mr Trump invited the two senior AMI figures to the White House for what Mr Colangelo called a “thank you dinner” for their contributions to his campaign.
Mr Colangelo said Mr Howard had learned in the weeks before the 2016 election that Ms Daniels planned to go public about her affair allegation from her lawyer Keith Davidson.
The court heard he alerted Mr Pecker and then contacted Mr Cohen, who explained the situation to Mr Trump. The presidential candidate was “adamant that he did not want the story to come out”, prompting Mr Cohen to make the $US130,000 payment.
Mr Colangelo said Mr Howard also helped orchestrate two other catch-and-kill agreements.
At Mr Pecker’s direction, he arranged a $US30,000 agreement to silence a Trump Tower doorman who claimed to have information about Mr Trump fathering a secret love child.
The court also heard that before the deal with Ms Daniels, Mr Davidson contacted Mr Howard with what he called a “blockbuster Trump story” – that former Playboy model Karen McDougal claimed to have had an affair with him lasting almost a year.
Mr Colangelo alleged that Mr Trump also “desperately did not want this information … to become public”, so Mr Howard travelled to California to meet Ms McDougal, remaining in “frequent and urgent contact” with Mr Pecker and Mr Cohen.
“Howard said he thought the allegations were true,” Mr Colangelo said, with a $US150,000 deal later struck by AMI to buy the rights to her story which was never published.
On the night of the election, as Mr Trump neared victory over Hillary Clinton, Mr Colangelo said Mr Davidson sent a text message to Mr Howard saying: “What have we done?”
Mr Trump’s lawyer Todd Blanche flatly rejected the case against his client in his opening statement, saying the former president had a “complete lack of knowledge or intent” linked to the business records as he waved away the charges as merely “34 pieces of paper”.
He added that there was nonetheless “nothing illegal” about the payment to Ms Daniels.
“I have a spoiler alert. There’s nothing wrong with trying to influence an election. It’s called democracy,” Mr Blanche said.
He accused the porn star of attempting to extort Mr Trump with “salacious allegations”.
“President Trump fought back like he always does and like he’s entitled to do, to protect his family, his reputation and his brand, and that is not a crime,” Mr Blanche said.
“(Ms Daniels) saw her chance to make a lot of money … and it worked.”
He similarly argued that there was “nothing illegal about what you will hear happened among AMI, the National Enquirer, Mr Pecker and President Trump”.
“It’s not against the law,” Mr Blanche said.
Mr Howard – who has previously denied any wrongdoing – is not expected to testify during the trial in the Manhattan Criminal Court.
Mr Pecker, the first witness called by prosecutors, said he believed his former employee was in Australia and was unable to travel due to a spinal condition.
In a brief appearance on the stand, which will be continued on Tuesday (local time), he said Mr Howard “reported directly to me” and was responsible for making sure “we had the most exclusive and current content” across AMI’s mastheads as its chief content officer.
The trial is expected to run for at least six weeks.
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