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Trump hush money trial live: Defence cross-examines David Pecker - BBC News Trump hush money trial live: Defence cross-examines David Pecker - BBC News
(32 minutes later)
Kayla Epstein Nada Tawfik
Reporting from courtReporting from court
We've been asking legal experts to talk about how the trial is proceeding so far. David Pecker has come off as a truthful, reliable witness.
There has been one surprise, according to John Coffee, a professor at Columbia Law School. This is someone who said he considered Donald Trump a mentor, had a decades long relationship with him, and even now doesn’t harbour any ill will towards the ex-president.
"The new and unexpected development this week has been the enthusiastic and highly cooperative testimony that Mr Pecker has given," he told me via email. That is presumably why the defence didn’t come out swinging, but chose instead to try to lead him where they wanted. Bove tried to frame the “catch-and-kill” scheme - and even his cooperation with prosecutors - as a business decision.
"Because he was a friend of Trump, I had expected more grudging testimony." The phrase “standard operating procedure” featured often, as Bove went slowly through agreements, invoices and ledger entries related to Karen McDougal.
But instead, Coffee tells me, Pecker has "strongly endorsed" the prosecution's theory that Trump and his fixer, Michael Cohen, enlisted Pecker to help Trump's 2016 presidential campaign. The defence lawyer also got Pecker to recount that McDougal’s agreement did include real obligations, and that he had told Cohen that it was “bullet proof” after consulting with a campaign attorney.
Let's not forget, however, that Pecker is testifying under a deferred prosecution agreement, since AMI - the owner of the National Enquirer - has admitted that it committed related felonies. But under cross-examination, prosecutors tried to leave no room for doubt.
Pecker's "catch-and-kill" schemes at the National Enquirer tabloid magazine - to boost Trump as the presidential candidate and block negative stories about him - have been the main focus of the first week of testimony. Pecker reiterated that the true purpose of McDougal’s contract was to acquire the life rights to her story, and that the “catch-and-kill” scheme was to benefit Donald Trump’s campaign.
The defence, therefore, didn’t succeed in making a significant dent in the prosecution’s narrative.
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