How Australian Dylan Howard became a witness in case that led to Donald Trump’s indictment

Dylan Howard has become a key witness in former US President Donald Trump’s indictment case. See the documents that explain why.

Exclusive: Controversial Australian journalist Dylan Howard can be revealed as a key witness in the case that led to former president Donald Trump’s indictment, News Corp can reveal.

Howard, a former Seven Network reporter who was once close to Hollywood star Charlie Sheen, gave secret evidence to the grand jury earlier this year before it made history by indicting Trump on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records over hush money payments to women including porn star Stormy Daniels.

On Wednesday, Trump became the first former or serving president in history to be arrested and charged with criminal offences before appearing in court in New York to plead not guilty to the charges.

Howard was drawn into Trump’s orbit through his role between 2013 and 2019 as chief content officer and editor-in-chief of the publisher of the National Inquirer, American Media Inc.

Dylan Howard pictured with United States President Donald Trump in the White House. Picture: Official White House photo by Shealah Craighead.

Charlie Sheen and Dylan Howard. Picture: Supplied

He worked at AMI after a turbulent period in his career that included a run-in with the AFL and the courts over his reporting of the medical records of two footballers and a falling-out with his business partner, Craig Hutchison.

News Corp approached Howard for comment, but his US lawyer, John B Harris responded on his behalf.

“Mr Howard has always fully co-operated with government inquiries regarding his former employer’s relationship with Donald Trump,” Mr Harris said in a statement to News Corp.

“He did so again before the New York grand jury earlier this year.

“Mr Howard was, and remains, merely a witness in these inquiries and has never been accused of wrongdoing by any authority,” Mr Harris said.

AMI’s chief executive, David Pecker, was a long-time Trump confidant who is also likely to give evidence if the case against the former president makes it to trial.

In return for an agreement not to prosecute it, AMI has admitted taking part in what Mr Trump’s prosecutor, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, has dubbed a “catch and kill scheme” to “to identify and suppress negative stories” about the former president in the run-up to the 2016 election that swept him to power.

The former president falsified documents “to conceal crimes that hid damaging information from the voting public during the 2016 presidential election”, Mr Bragg said on Tuesday.

Howard isn’t named in a statement of facts filed with the New York Supreme Court by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg that supports the indictment, but the journalist can be identified in it by his job description.

In his statement of facts, Mr Bragg alleges that in June 2016, about five months before the election, Howard contacted one of Trump’s then-lawyers, “Lawyer A”, who can be identified as Michael Cohen, about a woman “who alleged she had a sexual relationship with the Defendant while he was married”.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. Picture: Getty

The woman is given the codename “Woman 1” by Mr Bragg, but can be identified as Karen McDougal, an actress and former Playboy model.

“The AMI Editor-in-Chief updated Lawyer A regularly about the matter over text message and by telephone,” Mr Bragg alleges in the statement.

“AMI ultimately paid $150,000 to Woman 1 in exchange for her agreement not to speak out about the alleged sexual relationship, as well as for two magazine cover features of Woman 1 and a series of articles that would be published under her byline.”

Bragg also alleges Howard was involved in AMI’s dealings with porn star Stormy Daniels, who received $130,000 from Mr Trump.

It is alleged Howard contacted the chief executive of AMI, David Pecker, about Daniels in October 2016, shortly after news broke that Trump had been caught on video telling the host of TV show Access Hollywood about grabbing women by the genitals.

“When you’re a star, they let you do it,” Trump said in the tape. “You can do anything.”

Howard is alleged to have “connected” Cohen with Daniels lawyers a few days later.

In 2018, Cohen pleaded guilty to offences including campaign finance breaches over the payments and was sentenced to three years in prison. He is also expected to give evidence against Mr Trump.

Howard got his start at the Geelong Advertiser in the early 2000s – archives show him covering local AFL heroes the Cats before moving on to write a column, Howard’s Way.

He moved on to Seven and TV, where in 2008 he became the news after going to air with a story based on the medical records of two AFL players.

Dylan Howard in New York after he moved to the US. Picture: Getty

The story caused open warfare between the TV network and AFL players, with a court suppressing the names and club of the players involved, and sparked a police investigation.

A court heard that Howard paid $300, with the promise of an additional $2700 to come, to two people who claimed to have found the files in a Manila folder in the street.

The two sources were prosecuted but Howard was never charged.

However, Seven did not renew his contract when it ran out at the end of 2008.

He moved to the US the following year to head the American arm of the Crocmedia empire run by Hutchison, another footy reporter turned media magnate.

Dylan Howard when he was at Channel 7.

He quickly rose through the ranks after breaking celebrity stories that included catching actor Mel Gibson on tape allegedly making racist rants against his former partner, Oksana Grigorieva.

According to his LinkedIn profile, Howard became chief content officer and vice-president of AMI in 2013, a role he held until 2019.

During his time at the company, he also broke the story that Sheen, who had been living with a porn star, was HIV positive. The journalist and the actor had developed a close relationship, with Howard saying he “became a regular at his home”.

Howard was accused of providing information about actress Rose McGowan to Hollywood rapist Harvey Weinstein, but the journalist denied doing any favours for the producer.

In 2019, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos also accused AMI of blackmail over what Howard described in an email to the billionaire – which Bezos published online – as a “below the belt selfie”.

AMI’s lawyers said Bezos’s allegations were “false and spurious”.

Since 2020, Howard has been CEO and chairman of New York-based Empire Media Group.

Originally published as How Australian Dylan Howard became a witness in case that led to Donald Trump’s indictment