OAN’s Abril Elfi
6:15 PM – Wednesday, May 29, 2024
The jury in the so-called “hush money” trial against former President Donald Trump has requested to re-hear testimonies from both his former attorney, Michael Cohen, and businessman David Pecker through a transcript.
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According to a copy of the transcript, prosecutor Joshua Steinglass has asked to re-hear the testimonies regarding the timing and what Pecker and Trump discussed during their call in June of 2016.
Pecker had said that he advised Trump to purchase the story related to Karen McDougal “and take it off the market.”
“I believed the story was true,” Pecker said.
“I think that it would have been very embarrassing to himself and also to his campaign,” Pecker added about Trump.
Pecker testified saying that Trump claimed he does not buy those stories because they are always leaked anyways and that he would get in contact with the outlet again. He also testified that he was told to buy the story by Cohen over the phone either that day or the following day.
In another request, the jury had asked about Pecker’s testimony regarding McDougal. The jury questioned Pecker’s testimony regarding McDougal’s life rights in its second request.
Meanwhile, Steinglass questioned Pecker regarding his choice to back out of the deal in order to give Trump McDougal’s life rights to the subject matter through a third party. The parent company of the National Enquirer, American Media Inc. (AMI), had purchased the story’s rights.
Pecker claimed that early in October 2016, he informed Cohen of his choice.
“I called Michael Cohen, and I said to him that the agreement, the assignment deal, is off. I am not going forward. It is a bad idea, and I want you to rip up the agreement,” Pecker said. “He was very, very angry. Very upset. Screaming, basically, at me. And I said, ‘I am not going forward with this agreement. Rip it up.’ And he said, excuse me, Michael Cohen said, ‘The Boss is going to be very angry at you.’”
He also stated that the company AMI was never reimbursed for the money they paid to get the exclusive rights to McDougal’s story about her alleged affair with Trump.
Finally, they also requested to re-hear testimony from Cohen regarding his meeting with Pecker at the Trump Tower to discuss what AMI would do for the campaign.
Prosecutor Susan Hoffinger asked Cohen what was discussed and about the agreements that were reached during the meeting, in which Cohen recounted Pecker’s saying that “he could keep an eye out for anything negative about Mr. Trump and that he would be able to help us to know in advance what was coming out and try to stop it from coming out.”
The former Trump attorney continued, stating that AMI had previews for him in regards to some of the stories that they had planned to publish, which he then said he would show them to the former president.
Currently, former President Trump is facing 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in connection with payments to allegedly help prevent potentially detrimental stories from being made public.
Prosecutors claim Trump’s company, the Trump Organization, reimbursed Cohen for payments to Daniels and gave Cohen extra money for completing the task. Prosecutors also claimed that those transactions were falsely logged in company records as legal expenses.
Additionally, Trump has pleaded not guilty to all charges and denied sexual encounters with any of the women.
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