From The Daily Mail
Pecker was the only witness Tuesday. He delivered his testimony in grave tones, talking seriously and slowly about the risqué business of buying up 'kiss and tell' tales and inventing lurid magazine covers that would sell in their millions.
The prosecution case revolves around the business he once ran, American Media Inc and its stable of supermarket tabloids.
Prosecutors allege his long relationship with Trump put him at the heart of a scheme to buy up and then kill stories that were damaging to his friend's 2016 campaign.
But as he delivered his evidence, the 72-year-old also revealed the inner workings of a muckraking industry that produced mindbending headlines to order.
'The exhibits are not evidence that any of the assertions in these headlines are true,' intoned Judge Juan Merchan.
Cue headlines that included, 'Ted Cruz shamed by corn star,' at a time when he was emerging as the main challenger to Trump's effort to secure the 2016 Republican nomination.
'Bungling surgeon Ben Carson left sponge in patient's brain,' was another one timed to coincide with the neurosurgeon's surge in the polls.
'When I bought the National Enquirer in March of 1999, one of the first calls that I received was from Mr Trump ...' he said in court, recalling how the future president told him: 'Congratulations, you've bought a great magazine.'
Their relationship deepened after that. They developed a mutually beneficial tie-up: Trump would give him exclusive details about his Apprentice TV show, such as ratings, or juicy titbits from the celebrity version, boosting circulation for the magazine and keeping Trump in the public eye.
Pecker was a frequent visitor to Trump's Florida Mar-a-Lago estate and traveled on his private plane.
In June 2015, Pecker was invited to Trump Tower to watch the famous ride down the golden escalator when Trump announced his White House run.
Two months later, he described returning to the building for the meeting with fixer Michael Cohen and Trump, where they made a plan for handling media coverage.
He would be the 'eyes and ears' of the campaign, using his editors' network of sources to sniff out and then snuff out stories that could hurt Trump.
It was mutually beneficial, he said, because he would get story tips in return.
'Michael Cohen would call me and say, "We would like you to run a negative article on a certain" ... let's say for argument sake ... on Ted Cruz then he—Michael Cohen— would send me information about Ted Cruz or Ben Carson or Marco Rubio,' he said, 'and that was the basis of our story and then we would embellish it from there.'
At different times each of the three Republicans emerged as the biggest challenger to Trump in winning the party nomination.
4 comments:
Don the Dementia Con strikes again and still his dumb cult Magna won't care because. Lambs to slaughter.👿
Are the rumors true about he 😷 stinks, they’re saying he wears a diaper and the court room stinks.
@10:14 Yes since the 90’s, and people who have been around him says he smell atrocious.
@10:14 Yes since the 90’s, and people who have been around him says he smell atrocious.
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