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Nonilex Apr 26, 2024

#TrumpTrial Day 4 🧵 starts here.

Yesterday came to an abrupt end when the dishwasher leaked all over the floor. It’s fixed now, but what a mess.

Linus, Ramone & I are all doing well.

Yesterday’s 🧵 start:
https://masto.ai/@Nonilex/112332007257451711

#criminal #law #Trump #CatchAndKill #conspiracy #ElectionInterference #HushMoney #MobTactics #NodFarter #GagOrder

Nonilex (@[email protected])

Start of #TrumpTrial testimony day3 (I’m not counting jury selection or off days) 🧵 #Tabloid Publisher #DavidPecker to Resume Testimony #Pecker, the longtime publisher of The #NationalEnquirer, is expected to return to the stand & describe the #HushMoney deal w/ #StormyDaniels at the heart of the case, in which #Trump is charged w/ 34 #felonies. #criminal #law #CatchAndKill #FakeNews #ElectionInterference

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Nonilex Apr 26, 2024

On his 3rd day of testimony, #Pecker, the fmr #NationalEnquirer publisher, described his involvement in the #CatchAndKill of the stories of 2 women who claimed to have had sex w/ #Trump: #KarenMcDougal, a Playboy model, & #StormyDaniels, the porn star whose 2016 #HushMoney payoff forms the basis of the #criminal case.

#law #TrumpTrial #ElectionInterference

#Trump is charged w/falsifying 34 business records to cover up a $130k payment to #StormyDaniels, who has said they had a sexual encounter in 2006 & was shopping that story in the weeks before the 2016 presidential election.

Trump denies the charges & ever having had sex w/ either woman.

He could face probation or prison if convicted.

#law #TrumpTrial #ElectionInterference

Nonilex Apr 26, 2024

#Pecker testified that as part of the #CatchAndKill #conspiracy #AMI paid #KarenMcDougal $150k for her story, w/no intention of ever publishing it.

Pecker expected repayment from #Trump. He asked #MichaelCohen who would handle it, & Cohen responded, “The boss will take care of it.”

Because Pecker had such a hard time getting Trump to pay, he was unwilling to buy the 3rd story: #StormyDaniels’s.

“I am not a bank,” Pecker recalled saying.

#criminal #law #TrumpTrial #ElectionInterference

Nonilex Apr 26, 2024

#Pecker suggested that #MichaelCohen buy #StormyDaniels's story, leading to the #HushMoney deal, repayments & records at issue.

The prosecution’s discussion of the deal w/ #KarenMcDougal —brokered in summer 2016— demonstrated that the payment was part of a #conspiracy to #influence that year’s #election.

Pecker said that McDougal’s payment was disguised as a contract for services, to avoid violating #CampaignFinance #laws.

#criminal #law #Trump #TrumpTrial #ElectionInterference #CatchAndKill

Nonilex Apr 26, 2024

“I wanted to protect my company, I wanted to protect myself & I wanted also to protect Donald Trump,” #Pecker said.

Pecker was asked whether he believed #Trump was concerned that his wife or family would find out. But Pecker suggested that Trump’s concerns were electoral, not personal.

Pecker testified to at least 2X when Trump asked after #KarenMcDougal, referring to her at a Trump Tower meeting as “our girl.” He also asked about her during a meeting at the #WhiteHouse.

#law #TrumpTrial

Nonilex Apr 26, 2024

The Trump Tower meeting also included #JamesComey, then the #FBI dir, #ReincePriebus, who was chair of the RNC, #SeanSpicer the WH press sec & #MikePompeo the dir of the CIA.

Totally normal.

At that meeting #Pecker reassured #Trump that everything was fine.

Trump then told the group that Pecker probably “knows more than anyone else in this room.”

“It was a joke,” Pecker testified, adding, “They didn’t laugh.”

#criminal #law #TrumpTrial #CatchAndKill #conspiracy #ElectionInterference

Nonilex Apr 26, 2024

#Pecker said on Tues he had agreed to be the “eyes & ears” of the #TrumpCampaign & used #AMI to deal w/threats to #Trump’s reputation.

After the #AccessHollywood tape came out in Oct 2016, where Trump’s boasts about groping women, one of Pecker’s editors scrubbed an AMI publication’s website of a 2008 article describing Trump as a “playboy man.”

#criminal #law #TrumpTrial #CatchAndKill #conspiracy #ElectionInterference #HushMoney

Nonilex Apr 26, 2024

Despite that, #Trump often made his displeasure known, #Pecker testified, either through #MichaelCohen or direct calls. Pecker described Trump as “very angry” & “very aggravated.”

Pecker said, “I felt that Donald Trump was my mentor,” Pecker said, adding, “I still consider him a friend.”

Trump’s lawyers, led by Emil Bove, started their #CrossExamination trying to show that such deals were “standard operating procedure” in the supermarket #tabloid business.

#criminal #law #TrumpTrial

Nonilex Apr 26, 2024

That offered the first look at defense’s strategy: normalizing #criminal acts.

The #CrossExamination also showed the seedier side of #tabloids, incl’g the admission that #Pecker’s magazines bought stories as leverage against #celebrities.

Pecker described a 2002 meeting in which #ArnoldSchwarzenegger asked Pecker not to run negative stories about him before his run for governor of California. He was elected & served 2003-2011.

#law #Trump #TrumpTrial #CatchAndKill #ElectionInterference

Nonilex Apr 26, 2024

#NationalEnquirer fmr publisher David #Pecker’s testimony is expected to conclude today. He’s already spent 3 days on the stand.

#Trump, addressing reporters before entering the courtroom, wished his wife, #Melania, a happy birthday on camera. Then entered the courtroom where he’s on trial for falsifying records to silence 2 women about having extramarital affairs w/him to hide it not from her but from his evangelical Christian electorate. JFC

#criminal #law #TrumpTrial #ElectionInterference

Nonilex Apr 26, 2024

#Trump is back w/ his criminally indicted adviser #BorisEpshteyn.

Justice Juan #Merchan is on the bench & announces a scheduling clarification, saying that another hearing to determine whether Trump violated his #GagOrder will be held next Thurs morning. We are still waiting for the outcome of Tuesday’s hearing on the gag order, in which prosecutors asked that Trump be held in #contempt & fined at least $10k.

#criminal #law #CatchAndKill #conspiracy #ElectionInterference #MobTactics #NodFarter

Nonilex Apr 26, 2024

#Pecker is back & takes the stand.

The jury is seated & one of the defense lawyers, Emil Bove, resumes his #CrossExamination. #Bove apologizes for making it seem yesterday as if Pecker had lied in a conversation w/ federal prosecutors about whether #HopeHicks had been present for a meeting in #Trump Tower.

Prosecutors have described the meeting, which occurred in 2015, as central to the #conspiracy at the heart of this case.

#criminal #law #TrumpTrial #CatchAndKill #ElectionInterference

Nonilex Apr 26, 2024

#Bove asks #Pecker to describe the negative stories that The #NationalEnquirer ran about #Trump's 2016 #Republican opponents, #BenCarson, #MarcoRubio & #TedCruz. He argues, as he did yesterday, that it was standard operating procedure to run articles like these, in which The NE reran previously reported content. Bove is still trying to convince the #jury that Pecker didn't have some special arrangement w/Trump: Instead, his publication was doing what it had always done.

#law #TrumpTrial

Nonilex Apr 26, 2024

FYI
Yesterday, prosecutors asked #Pecker to walk through his non-prosecution agreement in connection w/the 2018 federal investigation into the actions of #MichaelCohen & #NationalEnquirer’s parent company #AMI.

#Merchan told the jury that it was offered to provide context & to help them assess Pecker's credibility. He added that it wasn’t evidence of #Trump's guilt.

#criminal #law #CatchAndKill #conspiracy #ElectionInterference #HushMoney

Nonilex Apr 26, 2024

#Bove leading the #CrossExamination of #Pecker, is trying to drive home the idea that The #NationalEnquirer recycled news from other publications. It is seemingly an effort by Bove to show that Pecker wasn't moving mountains to find damaging info about Trump's Republican opponents during the 2016 presidential race.

#Trump is sitting at the defense table w/ his eyes shut as Pecker testifies.

#criminal #law #CatchAndKill #conspiracy #ElectionInterference #HushMoney #MobTactics #NodFarter

Nonilex Apr 26, 2024

#Bove spent a fair amount of time reviewing articles that he said had recycled content in them. But he didn't fully explain how this was standard practice for The #NationalEnquirer, & he has now moved on to another topic. It was somewhat difficult to follow what exactly it was that Bove was trying to imply.

Bove is currently arguing that it was fairly well-known, if not widely spoken about, that The NE was trying to help #Trump during his 2016 campaign.

#criminal #law #TrumpTrial

Nonilex Apr 26, 2024

However when one of the negative stories about #TedCruz came out in 2016 #Trump said:

"I did not know about it, & have not, as yet, read it. Likewise, I have nothing to do w/ the #NationalEnquirer & unlike Lyin' Ted Cruz I do not surround myself w/ political hacks & henchman & then pretend total innocence."

The suggestion by Trump’s lawyer that what #Pecker did for Trump was #SOP is belied by ~20yrs of Pecker helping him.

#criminal #law #TrumpTrial #CatchAndKill #ElectionInterference

Nonilex Apr 26, 2024

#Bove is asking #Pecker about #Dino Sajudin, the #doorman w/a story to sell about #Trump fathering a child out of wedlock. Sajudin was at the heart of the 1st #CatchAndKill deal, in which The NE purchased the story & did not publish it. Bove asks Pecker to repeat that he believed that if the story were true, “it could be the biggest #NationalEnquirer article ever.” Bove appears to be trying to suggest that Pecker would have published it had he been able to verify it.

#criminal #law #TrumpTrial

Nonilex Apr 26, 2024

Even though #Pecker knew the story was false, he paid $30k for it. He previously testified that he thought it would have been an embarrassment to the #TrumpCampaign. But #Bove is trying to get Pecker to agree that he instead paid for the story to avoid losing it to another publication.

Aside - Even when #Trump tried to run for president in 2012, Pecker advanced his #birther #conspiracy against Barack #Obama.

#criminal #law #TrumpTrial #CatchAndKill #ElectionInterference #HushMoney

Nonilex Apr 26, 2024

Prosecutors repeatedly object to defense’s use of “President Trump” to refer to a meeting in June 2016, pointing out that #Trump wasn’t president at that point. Justice #Merchan sustains.

#Bove keeps jumping between topics during his #CrossExamination of #Pecker. Trump seemed engaged yesterday when this line of questioning began, today he’s more lethargic — sitting slumped in his chair, & he just tried to disguise a yawn.

#criminal #law #TrumpTrial #conspiracy #ElectionInterference #NodFarter

Nonilex Apr 26, 2024

#Bove is making an important point right now about an agreement that The #NationalEnquirer made w/ #KarenMcDougal, the fmr Playboy model whose story about an affair w/ #Trump the tabloid purchased & sought to bury. Prosecutors had tried to suggest that the agreement - which included a number of different benefits for McDougal - was made to disguise a $150k #HushMoney payment.

Bove is pointing out that McDougal actually did receive the benefits of the agreement.

#criminal #law #TrumpTrial

Nonilex Apr 26, 2024

#Bove tries to emphasize that #KarenMcDougal's primary focus was not cash, but the desire to restart her career.

#Pecker gets confused for a moment, but eventually agrees that McDougal was focused on her career. This is not an earth-shattering point, but, if the jury is able to follow it, it helps pick away at the prosecution's argument about this agreement.

#criminal #law #Trump #TrumpTrial #CatchAndKill #conspiracy #ElectionInterference #HushMoney

tlariv Apr 26, 2024

@Nonilex
Did he get her name right this time?

Valdis Krebs Apr 26, 2024

TC Won't Give In To Lies Apr 26, 2024

@Nonilex
Subpoena Comey, Priebus and Spicer!

okanogen VerminEnemyFromWithin Apr 26, 2024

@Nonilex
Wait.
What?
James Comey meeting with Trump campaign team in August, 2016?
What?

okanogen VerminEnemyFromWithin Apr 26, 2024

@Nonilex
Ok, that was January, 2017. But still.... why is the fucking director of the FBI there?

bouriquet Apr 26, 2024

@Nonilex Just like in the Nixon era, the severity isn’t just in the initial offense but in the intensity of the coverup.