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1:00

hate the Supreme Court! For

1:19

your information, the Supreme Court has roundly

1:21

rejected prior restraint. This is not the

1:24

first amendment thing. I

1:27

printed out a sign especially for him

1:29

using his favorite font, Garamond. Who has

1:31

a favorite font? I

1:33

read on the internet that it's not against the

1:35

law for me to go to the bathroom while

1:37

the fasten seatbelt sign is on. So seatbelt sign

1:39

is on. But is it against the law

1:41

though? All

1:45

right, so you may have noticed that this

1:47

episode is late being the planned Trump trial

1:49

slash T3B midweek episode. And I have to

1:51

say I'm kind of going to throw Matt

1:54

under the bus slightly here with

1:57

all the love in the world. The plan was

1:59

for Matt to go go through the transcript and

2:01

grab parts of it for us to read

2:03

and then also do analysis.

2:06

I think that Matt is maybe such

2:08

a fast reader, incredibly fast

2:10

reader. I think he maybe

2:12

doesn't understand how long that takes because

2:15

just... Now, keep in mind, this

2:17

is for one episode, just the

2:20

transcript readings, let alone any

2:22

analysis like just the readings,

2:25

two hours. Two

2:27

hours long of just

2:29

readings, literally just doing transcripts.

2:33

You can imagine that the turnaround for these is hours. The

2:35

turnaround to try to get the trial

2:38

episode done with T3B is literally, I

2:40

don't know, six hours maybe and that

2:42

includes recording it. I

2:46

don't think you need to be an advanced

2:48

math whiz to know that that does

2:50

not work. First I

2:52

thought just delaying it a day would let

2:54

me get it done, but it's such a

2:56

monstrosity. If you can imagine editing to make

2:58

all that work and then interspersed the transcript

3:01

with the analysis, that's

3:03

a big edit, not to mention recording the transcripts. That

3:06

didn't quite cut it, but what I'm going

3:08

to do is I'm going to go in order

3:10

and release it as it is done and

3:12

I will just plug away. It's awesome. By

3:15

the way, I want to make very clear, it's great and

3:17

Matt's analysis is great and I love that

3:19

he's grabbed us so many cool

3:21

things to read. I mean, I

3:23

love doing the readings. It's really interesting. I

3:26

love doing this coverage, but we're obviously still

3:28

dialing this in because trying to

3:30

do that in anything less than like three

3:32

days would be very difficult for the amount

3:34

that we did. I didn't say

3:36

this, the analysis part was 90 minutes. If

3:41

you do some more math, that's nearly, when all of

3:43

a sudden done four hours of

3:45

episode, that's massive.

3:48

I cannot tell you how massive that is.

3:51

I say this lovingly, I think it comes down

3:53

to Matt being a super mega brain genius that

3:55

can read stuff in three seconds because it would

3:58

take me forever to work through those So

4:00

that's what I've got for you today. I'm just

4:03

gonna do like an episode's amount and then I'm

4:05

just gonna keep plugging away until I get chunks

4:07

out at a time and we're

4:09

gonna figure this out going forward but it's great stuff,

4:11

it's great stuff and it's gonna be a lot of

4:14

fun once it's all out. So there you have it.

4:16

I can't wait to get this all out to you.

4:18

Thanks so much for listening. Hello

4:20

and welcome to Opening Arguments. This is episode 1,029. I'm

4:24

your host, Thomas Smith. That over there is

4:26

real life attorney, Matt Cameron. How you doing?

4:28

For the record, I'm doing very well. Having

4:31

a good day. Objection. That's

4:33

a stand. There's

4:35

so much good stuff. Too much good stuff. You know

4:37

how down in New Bedford here in Massachusetts, they do

4:39

a reading of Moby Dick that's like 48 hours long

4:42

and they just have people come up to the podium and read? We should

4:44

just do that for the travel transcript. We should do the whole thing. Let's

4:46

just bang it out. What else are we doing?

4:49

Fantastic. Well, I think we'd better

4:51

just get into it because holy moly.

4:53

Why don't we take a quick break

4:55

that patrons of patreon.com/law do not have

4:57

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5:24

All right, where do we wanna begin? All right, so

5:26

I do wanna start with the headlines and the contempt

5:28

because this is a big deal that Donald Trump has

5:30

just held in contempt. So before we dig into the

5:32

transcripts, I wanna talk about this order, what it means,

5:34

some of the legal basis. There's been some misunderstandings I

5:36

think and the way that it's been reported. Unfortunately, as

5:39

much as I would like to tell you that Donald

5:41

Trump now has a criminal record, which I've seen journalists

5:43

saying that's not exactly true. It

5:45

is criminal contempt, but it's not actually gonna go

5:47

down as a criminal thing. It's actually one kind

5:49

of deal. So a judiciary code

5:51

section 750 and 751 control here. And

5:55

just upfront before we get into the decision, so you

5:57

know what we're looking at. There is first and second

5:59

degree. contempt as a crime in New York, but that's not

6:02

what he was charged under. It's not what the people were moving

6:04

for. They were just looking for

6:06

this willful violation of the order

6:08

to go down as this kind of code

6:10

contempt. It's called criminal contempt. It's under this part

6:12

of the code. I found a law review article

6:14

that explains a little better, because I'm not a New York lawyer. I want to

6:16

make sure I got it. And these kinds

6:19

of proceedings are actually neither civil nor criminal.

6:22

The article says they're a sui generis, their

6:24

own thing. Special proceedings to coerce further

6:27

obedience and punish past

6:29

disobedience. So good luck

6:31

with that. So when they go into the

6:33

contempt part, it's like not really the trial.

6:35

It's like a different thing. Yeah, they do have

6:38

to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he willfully violated the order,

6:41

but it's not exactly, yeah, this looks like this

6:43

weird little hybrid animal that we're working with. So

6:45

it doesn't mean that much, except it's a

6:47

big deal that obviously he's completely disrespecting the

6:50

court. I'd be pretty mad at my clients

6:52

for doing it. And I think

6:54

that if he were, I don't know, low level gang member

6:56

or drug dealer, he'd be spending a couple of nights in

6:58

jail for what he's been doing, but that's

7:00

not where we're at. Instead, he's gonna have to

7:02

fork over nearly $7.38 or

7:06

some stupid meeting with the non-money grant. And

7:09

the judge is not happy about the

7:12

fact that he can't charge more. He's not that

7:14

specifically. Oh, wow. He cannot. So

7:16

yeah, that's actually in his order. He has some great language

7:18

here. And I really, I've come into like Judge Marchand quite

7:21

a lot, I gotta say. Nice. Well,

7:23

$1,000 may suffice in most instances to protect

7:25

the dignity of the judicial system, to compel

7:27

respect for its mandates and to punish the

7:29

offender. It unfortunately will not achieve the desired

7:31

result in those instances where the Contemnor can

7:33

easily afford such a fine. In

7:35

those circumstances, it would be preferable if

7:37

the court could impose a fine more commensurate with the wealth of

7:39

the Contemnor. And he's suggesting up to $150,000 if he had his

7:42

way, but that's not what

7:44

the statute allows. So he's complaining that the

7:46

statute limits him to $1,000 per violation. He's like,

7:48

this is the first time we've ever tried to

7:50

hold a rich man to account. So we're not,

7:52

the system is not prepared for this. I'm sorry.

7:55

Yeah, no. Pretty much, it's literally

7:57

true. You know how it's like back in the day.

8:00

ever talked to old computer people and they're like, I

8:02

remember when we got a megabyte of RAM and

8:04

we thought there's no way you'd ever use that. There's

8:06

no way you'd ever use a megabyte of RAM. That's

8:09

like this. Yeah. That's something

8:11

that Bill Gates is saying about how 64K had to be enough for

8:13

anybody. Yeah. That's

8:15

right. Yeah. So, yeah, this

8:17

is, and he says, obviously at the end of the

8:19

order, he says, the court must therefore consider whether in

8:22

some instances jail may be a necessary punishment. So he's

8:24

just putting that out there that you could end up

8:26

in Rikers over this. Well, okay. Is that part of

8:28

the statute? Yes. So the options

8:30

are a fine nut exceeding $1,000 or a jail nut

8:32

exceeding 30 days. And

8:34

it's normal in contempt orders that you have

8:36

the possibility of being locked up. Wow. I

8:39

can't help but ask if your view as a judge

8:42

is, boy, this financial penalty sure

8:44

isn't enough. Wouldn't

8:47

you maybe think about escalating to the jail

8:49

part? Well, he's got to give him a

8:52

warning shot. Okay. Not that he hasn't

8:54

had enough warning shots, but you know, you got to try

8:56

it. And we heard, by the way, patrons will be familiar

8:58

with how that hearing went based on last week's reading. It

9:00

was fun. Yeah. And

9:02

this is the result. This order is what comes out

9:05

of it. And he does definitively for all time. He

9:07

has a rule for the ages here about retweets equaling

9:09

endorsements. He'll be happy to know. Oh, wow. I've

9:12

reached it. Big news. Yes. That

9:14

is. He makes the point. But

9:18

it is a very important thing. So the issue

9:20

of quote unquote reposting appears to be a question

9:22

of first impression. Backing legal authority to guide his

9:24

decision, the court must, as defense counsel stated at

9:27

the hearing, rely on common sense. That really came

9:29

back around to bite Todd Blanche when he said

9:31

that. Yeah. So

9:33

it is counterintuitive and indeed absurd to

9:35

read the expanded order to not prescribe

9:37

statements the defendant intentionally selected and published

9:39

to maximize exposure. This is not

9:41

to say that a repost will always be deemed

9:44

a statement of the reposter as context is

9:46

directly relevant. However, here under the unique facts

9:48

and circumstances, the only credible finding is that

9:50

reposts constitute statements of the defendant. Wow. And

9:52

that is a matter of law. Reposts are

9:54

endorsements. He also deals with the Jesse

9:57

Waters thing, which we enjoyed very much where he had

9:59

Trump basically, edited and made up a

10:01

Jesse Waters quote. Now that was fantastic. Yes.

10:04

I will let our non patrons in on how funny

10:06

that was. Because that was only for

10:08

patrons, right? Yes. Yeah. That

10:11

was hilarious because Trump puts a quote, as

10:13

I'm sure most people are familiar, puts a

10:15

quote of Jesse Waters and it's some bullshit.

10:17

And then he puts quote and then he

10:19

puts Jesse Waters, I agree, kind of thing.

10:22

And then it comes out like shortly

10:25

after in the exchange that Trump

10:27

added to the quote, and

10:30

so he's trying to say, oh yeah, that's just

10:32

something Jesse Waters, his attorney is saying, that's just

10:34

something Jesse Waters said, you know, news program, whatever.

10:37

And then it comes out like, wait a minute.

10:39

But that quote isn't Jesse Waters, like some of

10:41

it Trump just put in there and he's like,

10:44

yes, that is, that is true. Yeah.

10:48

Wouldn't use the word manipulated except yes. And

10:50

then Jesse Waters decided to like

10:52

put it out three hours later as

10:54

his own just to help out. God,

10:56

what a joke. What a clown car.

10:58

Unbelievable. Well, you'll be happy

11:01

to know this does not require much from

11:03

the judge. He says this constitutes a clear

11:05

violation of the expanded order and requires no

11:07

further analysis. So here you go. Easy

11:09

enough. Now, can you talk about the timing

11:11

of this? It was a little weird that it kept like it

11:13

felt like he was doing this a little bit at

11:15

a time. Is that just a matter of practicality or

11:17

is there something deeper going on there where he's like,

11:19

all right, we're going to hear some of this contempt

11:22

stuff. And then like, I'm going to pause that. We're going

11:24

to go back to the regularly scheduled trial programming. Yeah, it's

11:26

just, you know, the due process because the people had to

11:28

file a written motion as was required here and they had

11:30

to put it on writing and then they have to have

11:32

a hearing on it just because, you know, they need to

11:34

find the unreasonable doubt that's actually constitutes because just to be

11:36

clear, this is not summary contempt, which is when you do

11:38

it in front of the judge. In that case, the judge

11:40

can just shoot you down right away. Oh, that immediately imposes

11:42

out. But he was doing it outside the

11:44

presidency, the judge, even if it's in writing and something everybody

11:46

can read, you still have to have a full hearing and

11:48

talk about it. So he is and this is normal that

11:50

you'd be squeezing it in to the proceedings as you

11:53

go. Okay. There has been a hearing on

11:55

Thursday, May 2nd. It has

11:57

not happened at the time that we've recorded. So there's going

11:59

to be even more because of course. Trump has continued to

12:01

do this and he has said several times now that he's

12:04

ready to be like Nelson Mandela and

12:06

run from jail. Just

12:10

famously Nelson Mandela shit

12:12

talked to everybody on Twitter that was how he did

12:14

it. Yeah that's how he

12:17

liberated South Africa. It's just trash.

12:21

I mean it's really

12:24

offensive. Boy this apartheid

12:26

system really sucks. Quote

12:29

Jesse Watt. Yeah

12:31

so in the end of the day here the

12:33

order actually found nine out of the ten things

12:35

that people were looking for. He gave

12:37

him the benefit of the doubt on the tenth one

12:39

and said that he was actually responding to I believe

12:41

it's regarding Michael Cohen and it wasn't really clear about

12:43

what he might have been responding to something it might

12:45

have been fair game. Sure. So he gave him the

12:47

benefit on that but you know nine out of ten

12:49

isn't too bad for the people and that's nine thousand

12:51

dollars that I'm sure that all right people

12:54

we have nine thousand dollars the people in New York.

12:56

Hey New Yorkers you just became

12:58

as a whole nine thousand dollars richer. And

13:01

the NYPD just spent it a climate.

13:04

There we go. Yeah.

13:07

So yeah so there's our contempt and

13:10

Judge Marchand has joined the rest of us and holding

13:12

Donald Trump in contempt. So we

13:15

can move on to talk about what actually has

13:18

been going on at this trial. So the last

13:20

we spoke we were talking about the gag order

13:22

hearing as he said and that was only the

13:24

second day of the actual trial and on that

13:26

day David Pekker the publisher of and the head

13:29

of American Media Inc testified about how things work.

13:31

He got started in his testimony and then they

13:33

had to cut him off and they got going

13:35

again the next day on the 23rd. So there's

13:37

some great stuff in this testimony from David Pekker.

13:40

I think it's really good narrative. We have a

13:42

recording I understand that you've put together so we

13:44

could play that now I think. Yeah we got

13:46

our hands on the official tape. Yeah let's go

13:51

through it. I can't wait and we're gonna get

13:53

sort of like are we getting like the MST

13:55

3K the Matt Mastery Science Theater

13:57

version. You can cut in and. Can

14:00

interject in a break that down for yeah.

14:02

This clip is pretty self explanatory. I wanted

14:04

it just provides this one just as Blisters

14:06

can understand what ever said to the think,

14:08

it's actually just and really interesting and it

14:10

is the core. the case and I could

14:12

sort of stop and talk about different places

14:14

with the prosecution's asking questions for reason, so

14:17

distressed. Excerpt Is David Pecker talking about the

14:19

basic set up here for what Trump and

14:21

Cohen has reached with him. the agreement to

14:23

there is to Trump Tower what the Prosecution

14:25

in an opening statement called the Trump Tower

14:27

Conspiracy and this is essential. This is vital

14:29

to the prosecution's. Case because they want to

14:31

be able to show the Trump knew from the

14:33

beginning about what was going on. this wasn't Michael

14:36

Cohen out there isn't free agent trying to do

14:38

the stuff farm smooth and they want to show

14:40

that Trump knew for sure that this was an

14:42

election issue or that it would become an Isis

14:44

sounds of Play That by. Directing.

14:47

Your attention to a couple of

14:49

months later. Now in August, Twenty

14:51

sixteen did their come a time

14:53

when you attended a meeting and

14:55

trump. Tower Yes. Do you

14:57

remember when roughly that meeting was an

14:59

August. I was in the middle of August.

15:02

And who was present for that meeting. Donald

15:04

Trump, Michael Cohen and Hope

15:06

Hicks and. What's hope? hicks their the

15:08

whole time or away. C N N Out.

15:10

She was in and out. How. About Michael Cohen

15:13

and Donald Trump where they there for

15:15

the duration of the meeting. Yes,

15:17

how did the meeting some about? how did

15:19

you know to go? I received a call

15:21

from Michael Cohen telling me that the boss

15:24

wanted to see me and that so. Whereas.

15:26

Both Michael Cohen That's how he would prefer

15:28

to dump Trump as the boss. What did

15:30

you understand? the purpose of the meeting to

15:32

be before you actually got there? I.

15:35

Most of the time when I received a call

15:37

from Michael Cohen he wanted something so I assume

15:40

that they were going to ask. I was can

15:42

be ask for something. I didn't know what it

15:44

was before he got them. Well can you

15:46

describe for the jury what happened to

15:49

that meeting? please? At that meeting

15:51

Donald Trump and Michael they ask

15:53

me what can I do. And.

15:55

What my magazines to do to help the

15:58

campaign. So. thinking about it

16:00

as I did previously, I said what I would do

16:03

is I would run or publish positive

16:05

stories about Mr. Trump and I would

16:07

publish negative stories about his opponents. And

16:09

I said that I would also be

16:11

the eyes and ears of your, I

16:14

said I would be the eyes and ears because I

16:17

know that the Trump organization had a

16:19

very small staff. And then I said

16:21

anything that I hear in the marketplace,

16:23

if I hear anything negative about yourself

16:26

or if I hear anything about women

16:28

selling stories, I would notify Michael Cohen

16:30

as I did over the last several years. I would

16:32

notify Michael Cohen and then he would be able to

16:34

have them kill in another magazine

16:36

or have them not be published or somebody

16:39

would have to purchase them. Purchase the

16:41

negative stories about Mr. Trump so

16:43

that they would not get published,

16:45

you mean? That they would

16:47

not get published, yes. So I wanna break that

16:49

down a little bit. First of

16:51

all, when you offered, withdrawn, so you

16:53

offered to publish positive stories about Mr.

16:56

Trump? Yes. So you

16:58

published negative stories about his opponents? Yes.

17:01

And to alert him through

17:03

Michael Cohen when you came

17:05

across damaging information, particularly regarding

17:07

women? Yes. And

17:09

the idea was that so Mr.

17:11

Trump and Mr. Cohen could prevent

17:14

that information from being publicized? Yes.

17:17

So you mentioned women in particular. What

17:19

made you, are you the one who

17:21

raised that? Did somebody else raise that?

17:23

Can you explain to the jury how

17:26

the topic of women in particular came

17:28

up? Well, in a presidential campaign,

17:30

I was the person that thought there would

17:32

be a number. A lot of women come

17:34

out to try to sell their stories because

17:36

Mr. Trump was well known as

17:39

the most eligible bachelor and dated

17:41

the most beautiful women. And

17:43

it was clear that based on my past

17:45

experience, that when someone is running for public

17:47

office like this, it

17:49

is very common for these women to call

17:51

up a magazine like the National Enquirer and

17:53

try to sell their stories. Or

17:55

I would hear it in the marketplace through

17:58

other sources that the stories are. being

18:00

marketed. Did you have or express any

18:02

ideas about how you may be able

18:04

to help kind of deal with these

18:06

stories by women? All I said

18:08

was I would notify Michael Cohen. What

18:10

about Bill and Hillary Clinton? Did their

18:12

names come up during this meeting? Yes.

18:15

Can you explain how? As I mentioned

18:17

earlier, my having the National Enquirer, which

18:19

is a weekly magazine, and you focused

18:21

on the cover the magazine and who

18:23

and who and what is the

18:26

story that is the topic of the week. The

18:28

Hillary running for president and Bill

18:31

Clinton's womanizing was the biggest.

18:33

That was one of the biggest sales

18:35

I had for the National Enquirer and

18:38

the other tabloids. That's the other things that

18:40

the readers wanted to read about and so

18:42

that's what I would sell weekly. So

18:45

I was running the Hillary Clinton stories.

18:47

I was running Hillary as an enabler

18:49

for Bill Clinton with respect to all

18:51

the womanizing. And I

18:53

was, it was easy for me to say that

18:55

I'm going to continue running those types of stories

18:57

for the National Enquirer. And did you believe

18:59

that that would help Mr. Trump's campaign? I

19:02

think it was a mutual benefit. It

19:04

would help his campaign. It would also help me. Okay. I'm

19:07

going to come back to that and ask

19:09

you to elaborate a little bit more. Okay.

19:12

But specifically for the coverage

19:14

of Hillary Clinton as an enabler

19:16

of Bill Clinton's womanizing, that was

19:18

your focus? Yes, that's what I

19:21

said. How, if at all, did Mr. Trump

19:23

react to your suggestion that you would continue

19:25

to do that? He was pleased. Did you

19:27

discuss it at any greater length? As

19:30

I recollect, he was pleased. Michael Cohen was

19:32

pleased on the way I was going to

19:34

handle these issues and that was

19:36

the basis of the conversation. Okay. So now

19:38

you started to allude to earlier that

19:41

to some extent this arrangement that you

19:43

came to at this Trump Tower meeting

19:45

was mutually beneficial. Yes, that's correct. Can

19:48

you explain to the jury what you mean by

19:50

that? When I'm saying mutually beneficial is

19:52

in writing positive stories about Mr. Trump

19:54

and covering the election and writing negative

19:56

stories about his opponents is only going

19:59

to increase the newsstand sales of

20:01

the National Enquirer and the other tabloids.

20:03

So for me, that was my benefit.

20:06

And then in doing what, in

20:08

publishing these types of stories, was

20:10

also going to benefit his campaign. So that's where

20:12

I was saying that we were both mutually, both

20:15

parties were benefiting from it. And so

20:17

by each of the things that you agreed to do,

20:20

did you believe you were doing

20:22

both helping Mr. Trump's campaign and

20:25

also helping sell some magazines? Yes,

20:27

I needed the help. So the portion of the

20:29

agreement that involved notifying Michael Cohen

20:31

about negative stories either from women

20:34

or some other kind of negative

20:36

story, what was the ultimate

20:38

objective of that component of the arrangement

20:40

that you made at Trump Tower? Can you

20:42

rephrase that question? Yes, it

20:44

wasn't a good question. I'll try again.

20:46

You said that part of the arrangement

20:48

was that you would notify Trump through

20:50

Michael Cohen if you came upon negative

20:53

stories, whether they involve women

20:55

or just other negative stories. Yes.

20:57

What was the purpose of notifying Michael Cohen

20:59

when you came upon stories like that? Well,

21:02

as I did in the past, that would be in

21:05

the past eight years, when I notified

21:07

Michael Cohen of a story that was a negative

21:09

story, he would try to vet it himself to

21:11

see if the story was true or not. He

21:14

would go to the individual publication to get

21:16

the story to make sure the story wasn't

21:18

published and getting killed. Prior to that

21:20

August 2015 meeting, had you

21:22

ever purchased the story to not print it

21:25

about Mr. Trump? No. That

21:27

part of the deal where you were

21:29

going to notify them so they could

21:31

buy up negative information about Mr. Trump,

21:33

that part, did that part

21:35

help the National Enquirer at all?

21:38

How was that going to boost sales of the National Enquirer?

21:40

No, that didn't help. That is

21:43

the mutual benefit portion of it.

21:45

Except that part doesn't have a mutual

21:48

benefit. The purpose of that

21:50

component was to benefit the campaign. Am

21:52

I understanding you right? That is right. But

21:54

the part about running the positive stories, that

21:57

was mutually beneficial. Yes, the part about

21:59

running the... to avoid stories on the opponents.

22:01

That was mutually beneficial. So we've

22:03

just heard about this meeting and about how

22:06

Trump and Cohen were making this deal with him and

22:08

how he's friendly with Trump. This is kind of a

22:10

personal thing that he's doing because it's not necessarily gonna

22:12

benefit the inquirer that much. He actually

22:14

admits that it didn't necessarily help the sales of the

22:16

national inquirer for him to be buying up negative stories

22:19

about Donald Trump. It's not really the best use of

22:21

their money. Yeah, it seems like an important distinction there.

22:23

It's like there is a mutual benefit in that that

22:25

sounds like there's a quid pro quo, but

22:27

then there's a time it seemed like it was

22:29

sort of, I don't know if Pekka was doing

22:31

this on purpose, but it was a little bit

22:33

ambiguous, some of the answers it seems to me

22:36

that were like, well, yeah, this just helped me

22:38

anyway, which I think would slightly

22:40

undermine the case to say like if

22:42

he was just doing something that benefited him, but then he's

22:44

like, wait a minute. How

22:46

did it benefit the company for you to

22:48

buy negative stories and do nothing with them? And

22:52

he admits right here at this part we just stopped

22:54

at, that the purpose of this component was to benefit

22:56

the campaign. So this is really key. We wanna look

22:58

for these moments where they're talking about the campaign and

23:00

not just, because the defense is gonna try to pull

23:02

this back again to say, well, no, this is

23:05

just good for the paper. This is just good for business. You

23:07

guys are just interested in stories about Trump. Because he does also

23:09

say, I don't know if it's in this excerpt

23:11

or somewhere else, but he says that the

23:13

Trump stories historically have been very good for the national

23:15

inquirer. I believe it. It sells well.

23:17

And he said, did you catch the

23:20

biggest selling issue of the national inquirer, what it

23:22

was? Was that in this? I don't. I might

23:24

not have been in this, but he does mention

23:26

at some point that the best

23:28

selling issue of the national inquirer of all time

23:30

was when they ran a picture of Elvis in

23:33

his coffin. Pretty gross. And again, he

23:35

said for two years after, they kept running Elvis

23:37

stories because people loved Elvis so much. Yeah, maybe

23:39

they should run Trump in his coffin then. That'll

23:42

be the day. Yeah, that'd be, why not,

23:44

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23:46

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24:32

Were any of the agreements, the agreement

24:34

to print the negative stories about

24:36

the opponents, positive stories from Trump

24:39

or the agreement to notify Michael

24:41

Cohen about potentially negative stories about

24:43

Donald Trump, were any of those

24:45

agreements put into writing? No, they

24:47

weren't put into writing. It was just an agreement

24:49

among friends. Roughly how long would you

24:52

say this meeting lasted? 20, 25 minutes. Did

24:55

you discuss this meeting with anyone afterwards?

24:57

Yes. When I went back to my office,

24:59

as a matter of fact, I went immediately

25:01

back to my office. I met with Dylan

25:03

Howard. I mentioned his name yesterday. He

25:05

was the chief content officer of the company and

25:08

the editor in chief of the National Enquirer. I

25:10

described in the meeting I just had with

25:12

Mr. Trump and Michael Cohen and

25:14

I described to him that this concept and

25:17

agreement that I had made has to be

25:19

highly, highly confidential. What

25:21

I asked him to do was I asked

25:24

him to notify the West

25:26

Coast bureau chief of the National Enquirer.

25:28

His name was Jerry George. I

25:31

asked him to notify the East Coast bureau

25:33

chief of the National Enquirer. His name is

25:35

Barry Levine. I said

25:37

that any stories that are out

25:39

there that are commenting about Donald

25:41

Trump, commenting about his family, commenting

25:44

about the election, whatever it might be, I want

25:47

you to vet the stories. I

25:49

want you to bring them to me. And

25:52

then I said, we'll have to speak to Michael Cohen. You

25:54

will call Michael Cohen or I will call him and we'll

25:56

tell him what the stories are, but I want to make

25:58

sure that he's not in the right place. sure we

26:00

vet them first. Did

26:02

you tell him why you asked him to keep this arrangement

26:04

secret? Yes, I did. What did you tell him? I

26:07

told him that we were going to try to help

26:09

the campaign and to do that, I

26:11

want to keep this as quiet as possible. Because

26:13

if it came out that you were helping the campaign,

26:15

it would kind of undermine the

26:17

whole point. Objection sustained.

26:20

So let me rephrase that. Why was it

26:22

important to you that the arrangement be kept

26:24

secret? We have several hundred people

26:26

that work within the company. Being

26:29

a tabloid company, the leaks are probably

26:31

more prevalent within the organization than outside

26:33

the organization. I did not want anyone

26:35

else to know about this agreement I

26:37

had and what I wanted to do.

26:40

So that's why I wanted it very confidential. So

26:42

did you follow through? Did you publish

26:44

a series of pro-Trump articles in the

26:46

National Enquirer? Yes. So

26:49

let's talk about the National Enquirer for a second. I just

26:51

wanted to break in on that because I didn't know very

26:53

much about the National Enquirer. Have you ever

26:56

read the National Enquirer? No. Just check.

26:58

I don't know anybody who has, but apparently there

27:00

are people reading it because they claim to reach

27:03

3.6 million adults a week. Kind

27:05

of the demographics, I was just so curious about who's

27:07

actually reading this thing. We've all seen

27:09

it in the checkout lines. Apparently 58% of

27:12

the readership are women. The median household income is $57,000 and

27:14

estimated revenues of $29 million and about 13.5

27:20

million earnings before everything. So they're

27:22

making money somehow. That

27:24

is current numbers. That is, I just went looking just

27:26

to make sure I got the latest numbers. That's what

27:28

I could find. If you go looking at the National

27:30

Enquirer right now, as I did just for fun, for

27:33

some reason one of the top stories they have up

27:35

is a 2022 story about Amanda Seifried's press. So

27:38

it's kind of hard hitting journalism. Yes,

27:41

I truly, hard hitting journalism. Screen Center

27:43

Amanda Seifried is fed up with smart,

27:45

out guys constantly asking her to predict

27:47

the weather with her boobs. So that

27:49

is because of that one movie or something. Is that

27:52

the ending? Yeah. I think it was.

27:54

I just learned that from the story. Oh boy. That

27:56

would get old. They

27:59

refer to that. themselves and Becker calls them

28:01

in the testimony a news gathering organization. They

28:03

don't exactly have reporters, they just kind of

28:05

scoop things up and print them and buy

28:08

them. He actually in his testimony on the

28:10

22nd, the day before, he actually referred to

28:12

the National Enquirer as checkbook journalism, which is

28:14

a pejorative. Like that's not

28:16

something that I would expect him to say about his

28:18

own publication, but just as an interesting historical note, I

28:20

was fascinated by the history of the New York Enquirer.

28:23

It sort of started as New York Enquirer 1926. It

28:26

was started by a protege of William Randolph Hearst,

28:28

obviously one of the biggest publishers in American history

28:31

and back to this money and Hearst was

28:33

using it as a conservative outlet for the

28:35

place for the stuff that was too conservative

28:37

for his other people. And so William Griffin,

28:39

the publisher, really colorful guy, he actually at

28:41

one point was sued, excuse me, at one

28:43

point he sued Winston Churchill for libel because

28:45

Churchill denied that they had met. He actually

28:47

went, this is back in 1936 apparently, you

28:49

could just make an appointment with Winston Churchill

28:51

and talk to him. And he

28:53

had this meeting where Churchill allegedly told him that the

28:55

US should have stayed at World War I and they

28:57

should stay at any future European war. Griffin and the

28:59

National Enquirer at the time, the New York Enquirer were

29:01

very conservative, they were very isolationist, they thought that the

29:04

US had no business in Europe. And

29:06

so the New York Times found this quote at

29:08

some point and asked him about it and Churchill

29:10

called it a vicious lie and William Griffin sued

29:12

him for a million dollars back then. So yeah,

29:15

that's a lot of dollars. Wait, did he win

29:17

that judgment against the... I don't believe he did.

29:20

I couldn't find anything. Yeah, Churchill at the time,

29:22

according to him, offered to sell the story of

29:24

the meeting for $500, which would have been about

29:26

$8,000 today. I don't know if I

29:28

could believe that or not, but that's a pretty

29:30

funny detail that Winston Churchill tried to sell his

29:32

story of the National Enquirer. That's interesting. The National

29:34

Enquirer, as far as I can tell, is also

29:36

the only newspaper ever to be indicted for sedition.

29:38

And indicted for sedition because they were kind of

29:40

playing around with maybe supporting the Nazis a little

29:42

bit. Wow. Yeah, there's a whole other deep dive

29:44

to be had about the great sedition trial of 1944, a completely

29:46

forgotten moment

29:48

in American history where a whole lot of people were

29:51

indicted on sedition charges during the war. I haven't forgotten

29:53

him, Matt. You can't forget what you've never heard of.

29:56

We'll talk about it. That's one I'd want to get into. The

29:58

Enquirer was actually also the the first East Coast newspaper

30:01

to run the story Pearl Harbor because it was

30:03

the only thing that was publishing on Sunday afternoons.

30:05

It was sold in 1952 to somebody that allegedly

30:07

funded it with mob money, so it just kept

30:09

going. Moved to Florida, which seems like the right

30:11

place for it, in 1971. Came back to New York in 2014. It

30:14

was recently went through a forced sale because of

30:16

all the embarrassment over the catch and kill stories

30:19

and also the bad publicity of Jeff Bezos. So

30:21

it has recently been purchased by the guy who brought

30:23

us MoviePass, which you might remember as now, Bancrypt,

30:26

because it was such a bad business model. So

30:28

quite an American story, the National Enquirer. Does

30:30

that guy ever consider buying businesses that

30:32

don't suck or is it only... It's

30:35

like I only want the ones that really suck. I

30:37

don't want to just norm... You can just buy

30:40

like a Wendy's franchise or something, you know? The

30:43

National Enquirer is turning a profit apparently, unlike MoviePass.

30:45

Okay, fair enough. Got that going for it. So

30:47

otherwise, in this hearing, we learn about sort of

30:49

how catch and kill works generally, and there's sort

30:51

of... You have to expand the universe of catch

30:53

and kill so that the jury can

30:55

understand how this fits into the conspiracy and how this

30:57

is different from other catch and kill agreements that he's

30:59

made. It's kind of a funny moment

31:01

where Pecker explains, and there's a lot of testimony

31:03

that's going to be coming up about Michael Cohen.

31:05

This is kind of the beginning of that, where

31:08

he kind of gratuitously volunteers to mention some

31:11

things about Michael Cohen. So that's the

31:13

next clip. Well, we'll get our fine,

31:15

Juilliard-trained actors to... We'll press play on

31:17

this. Yeah. And I kind of

31:19

want to highlight these different places where the witnesses are

31:21

talking about Michael Cohen because he is going to be

31:24

a problem for the prosecution, obviously. He's

31:26

not a great witness, not a great guy. But

31:28

the prosecution is freely bringing out and allowing the witnesses to talk

31:30

about how he's not a great guy and how they all hate

31:32

dealing with him. And I think that's

31:35

actually going to be helpful for understanding his

31:37

veracity about the things that the prosecution needs

31:39

him to testify about. Yeah. Live

31:41

your life in such a way that if

31:43

you're ever a witness, it's not universally agreed

31:45

on by both the prosecution, the defense, the

31:48

attorneys, the judge, actually the

31:50

court reporters and the jury that you're a piece

31:52

of shit. You know, like you don't want... You

31:55

don't want... Hey, everybody, let's take a vote. This

31:57

guy's obviously a piece of shit. Here, here. whole

32:00

courtroom erupts in a plot. Don't live that.

32:02

I'm saying live your life that not that.

32:04

There's like multiple social circles and professional circles

32:07

that are kind of conglomerating within this trial

32:09

and they all agree that Michael Cohen sucks.

32:11

Yeah. Five out of five

32:13

dentists actually agree on this one. Them

32:16

too. I'd like to say one

32:18

other thing if I can. Sure. My

32:20

conversations with Michael Cohen, Michael Cohen would call me

32:23

and say, he would

32:25

say, we would like for you

32:27

to run a negative article on, let's say for

32:29

argument's sake on Ted Cruz, then

32:32

he would send me, he being Michael Cohen,

32:35

would send me information about Ted Cruz

32:37

or about Ben Carson or about Marco

32:39

Rubio. That was the basis of our

32:41

story and then we would

32:43

embellish it from there. We

32:46

meaning? The National Enquirer. The National

32:48

Enquirer. I would speak to Dylan.

32:50

He would hear the story. They

32:52

would start putting together the pieces of it, the

32:55

photos, what makes sense, how would we try to

32:57

do it, how the editorial

32:59

would be executed. It was a process

33:01

we were trying to explain, not just

33:03

coming up with the headline. Thank

33:05

you for clarifying that. Let me ask

33:07

you, as part of your answer just

33:09

now, you said that Michael Cohen would

33:11

call you periodically and say, we would

33:13

like you to run a negative story

33:15

about this political opponent or that political

33:17

opponent. Is that correct? Yes. Who

33:20

did you understand weed to be referring to? Michael Cohen always

33:22

told me he was not part of the campaign.

33:24

So I only assumed that he was talking to

33:26

Mr. Trump. To or about? When I say we.

33:29

Right. Michael Cohen wasn't part of

33:31

the campaign. When he said we, I thought

33:34

he was talking about himself and Mr. Trump.

33:36

Now, what did you understand Michael Cohen's

33:38

relationship to the campaign to be?

33:40

He always told me he was not a part

33:42

of the campaign. He did not work for the

33:44

campaign. He told me he wasn't part of the

33:47

campaign. He didn't work for the campaign. He was

33:49

on the outside. He kept saying he

33:51

was Mr. Trump's personal attorney and that he is a

33:53

lawyer and he didn't have any issues. He said there

33:55

was no issues with him with the campaign. And

33:58

what did you understand? If

34:00

anything, his relationship to the campaign to

34:02

be, I don't mean

34:04

formal, um, let me put it this way.

34:07

Did you understand there to be

34:09

an informal relationship between Mr. Cohen

34:11

and the campaign? Objection

34:13

sustained. What did you

34:16

understand the relationship to be between Mr.

34:18

Cohen and the campaign? Objection

34:20

overruled. You can answer. What

34:22

did you understand the relationship between Michael

34:24

Cohen and the campaign to be? I

34:27

thought that I'm going to say it the best

34:29

way I can. Michael was

34:31

physically there in every aspect of

34:33

whatever the campaign was working on,

34:35

at least at the

34:37

Trump organization, at the Trump Tower. He

34:40

was physically there where the

34:42

offices were. I thought probably he would

34:44

have heard things. He

34:46

wasn't part of the campaign, but I think

34:48

he may have heard things informally or he injected

34:51

himself into it. He said

34:53

it was informal. That's what I

34:55

thought because he said he wasn't part of the campaign. When

34:57

you say he injected himself into

34:59

it, what do you mean? If there

35:01

were issues, for example, let's

35:03

say that, let's go back to Ted Cruz

35:06

as an example. So he is physically in

35:08

that environment. And if he heard, I don't

35:11

know if he heard it from Mr. Trump or

35:13

if he heard it from another person within the

35:15

campaign or someone else, that there are issues about

35:17

Ted Cruz and we want this negative article to

35:19

be written. I would only work

35:21

with Michael. So I don't know who else he

35:23

spoke to. That's what I was trying to say.

35:25

Okay. When you use the phrase inject

35:28

himself into it, is it the campaign?

35:31

Yes. So, yeah, that's pretty much what

35:33

we got out of Tuesday. Of course, the court does not

35:35

meet on Wednesday. So let's skip ahead to Thursday. Pekka's direct

35:37

continues. And so Pekka explains some

35:39

interesting things about Arnold Schwarzenegger. I didn't know

35:41

anything about it. Yeah. Oh

35:44

my gosh. This was, I mean, not that unlike

35:46

the biggest Arnold fan, but like it's always sucks

35:48

to hear that, you know, essentially every single person

35:50

you've ever heard of sucks, you know, like it

35:52

just, I didn't start to feel that way. Apparently

35:54

30 to 40 women approached the National Enquirer. At

35:56

least we're known to have stories according to this

35:58

testimony. So that's something. So, yeah, we could play

36:01

that. OK, so did

36:03

you have any concerns about the legality

36:05

of AMI paying to kill a story

36:07

regarding a political candidate? Yes, I did.

36:09

Why did you have those concerns? In 20, between 2002

36:12

and 2003, I had an issue when I acquired a

36:14

story for Arnold Schwarzenegger when

36:19

he was running for governor of California. Can

36:21

you explain a little bit more about that to

36:23

the jury, please? Yes, in

36:26

2002, the Weider magazines, which

36:28

was Shape, Muscle and

36:30

Fitness, Flex, Health and Fitness titles, were

36:33

up for sale. Joe Weider

36:35

was the founder. He

36:37

founded all those magazines. We

36:40

also discovered Arnold Schwarzenegger and those guys. I

36:42

should say that Joe Weider and Arnold

36:44

Schwarzenegger had a relationship for 50 years. So,

36:47

when the magazines were being sold and I went

36:49

to see Joe Weider right before the sale, he

36:51

said to me, before we finalize

36:53

this transaction, you have to meet with

36:55

Arnold Schwarzenegger. So, he gave me

36:58

his phone number, called up Schwarzenegger. I went to

37:00

see him and he had the following conversation with

37:02

me. He said that, you know, I have

37:04

been on the covers of Muscle, Fitness and Flex, two

37:07

of the primary magazines you are buying 70 to 80

37:09

times. He said,

37:11

I want to be an editor at large for

37:13

both magazines. And I would

37:15

like a I want an agreement.

37:18

He said, you

37:20

bought the tabloids. He is referring to primarily the

37:22

Globe and the National Enquirer. And

37:24

he said, as I mentioned, I think on Monday,

37:26

we acquired them in March of 1999. He

37:30

said that, I have had a number of litigation

37:32

and lawsuits against both magazines because you always run

37:34

negative stories about me. And he said, I plan

37:37

on running for governor and I would like for

37:39

you not to publish any negative stories on me

37:41

now. I should say any

37:43

negative stories about me now or in the future.

37:47

And I will continue on being the editor

37:49

for Muscle, Fitness and Flex as the spokesperson.

37:51

So I agreed. And shortly after

37:53

he announced on the Jay Leno show that he was

37:55

running for governor and a number

37:58

after he made that announcement. of women

38:00

called up the National Enquirer about stories

38:02

that they had, that

38:05

they have, I should say, to sell on

38:07

different relationships or contacts and

38:10

sexual harassment that they felt

38:12

Arnold Schwarzenegger did. And

38:15

the deal that I had, the agreement

38:17

I should say that I had with Arnold is that

38:19

I would call him and advise him of any stories

38:21

that were out there. And I ended up

38:23

acquiring, buying them for a period

38:25

of time. And then as he became governor, and

38:28

one of the stories that I acquired, I wasn't

38:30

going to publish. And the person who took that

38:32

story, and since we didn't, since the company, since

38:35

we didn't publish it, she brought it

38:37

to the Los Angeles Times and the LA Times published

38:39

the story. It was very embarrassing.

38:42

Most of the press approached Schwarzenegger when he

38:44

was governor about the story. And his comment

38:46

was, I didn't know, he said,

38:48

ask my friend David Pekker. So

38:51

it was very embarrassing to me and the company.

38:53

And at that time, there was an investigation by

38:55

the state with respect to Arnold being the editor

38:57

of being an editor

38:59

at large for these two titles. He

39:02

had to resign. And it was

39:04

a difficult situation. And it

39:06

gave me the sensitivity about buying any

39:08

stories in the future. So that's where

39:10

that's how I became sensitive on this

39:12

topic. So let me just ask you one more

39:14

question about the end of what you were just saying. Did

39:18

as a result of your agreement

39:20

to purchase stories, negative stories about

39:22

Arnold Schwarzenegger, on behalf of Arnold

39:24

Schwarzenegger, when he was running for

39:26

governor of California, did you come

39:29

to appreciate the legalities surrounding such

39:31

an arrangement with the political candidate?

39:33

Yes, that was the first time I ever

39:35

came across a political violation, a

39:38

political contribution, what a

39:40

violation was. And what, if any, judge,

39:42

I object to the word violation

39:44

and move to strike sustained.

39:47

What did you in your mind take away

39:49

from that experience that you had as a

39:51

result of the Arnold Schwarzenegger situation? Based

39:54

on what happened 14 years ago, I

39:56

wanted to be comfortable that the agreement

39:58

that we were to prepare

40:00

for Karen McDougall met all the

40:03

obligations with respect to the campaign

40:05

contribution. Now you told us that there was

40:07

withdrawn. Did there come a time, and I don't

40:09

want to get into what you discussed with any

40:12

attorney, but did

40:14

there come a time that someone

40:16

at AMI consulted with an election

40:18

law attorney? Yes. And

40:21

did there come a time that you finalized

40:23

the deal with Karen McDougall? Yes. Did

40:26

you tell Michael Cohen that you had finalized

40:28

the deal with Karen McDougall? Yes. I

40:30

called Michael Cohen, and I told him that

40:32

we finalized an agreement

40:34

with Karen McDougall that the contract

40:36

was bulletproof, and we consulted with

40:38

a campaign attorney. Again,

40:41

important just to establish kind of how Catch and Kill

40:43

works. And then just a quick discussion about David Pecker

40:45

going to the White House, which I thought was interesting.

40:47

There's also pictures that went into evidence where

40:50

Trump invited him basically to thank him for all the great work

40:52

he did to help get him elected, and then

40:54

asks him as they're kind of walking out to the Rose

40:56

Garden, hey, how's Karen? And that apparently is the moment when

40:58

this picture was taken that went into evidence. Directing

41:01

your attention to July of that same year,

41:03

2017, did there

41:06

come a time when you visited the White House?

41:08

Yes, I did. How did that come

41:10

about? I received a call from President

41:13

Trump's office from his assistant,

41:15

Madeline White, White House. I

41:17

can't remember her last name. And she said the

41:19

president is on the phone. Mr. Trump

41:21

called and invited me to the White

41:23

House for dinner. Did he say why? He said

41:26

it was a thank you dinner, and he invited

41:28

myself and my wife. And what did you say?

41:30

I said that I'll speak to my wife and

41:32

I'll get right back to you. And did you

41:34

do that? I did. And my wife didn't want

41:36

to go to Washington. I called back Mr. Trump

41:38

and explained to him and he said, look, business

41:41

friends, business associates, it's your dinner. Your dinner meaning?

41:43

My thank you dinner. So who did you

41:46

bring? Did you go? Yes, yes. Who did

41:48

you bring? I brought all business associates. You

41:50

don't have to tell us everybody you

41:52

brought, but among the people you

41:54

brought, did it include Dylan Howard? Yes. Did

41:57

it include David Brodsky? Yes, it did. Do

41:59

you remember? who you coordinated the

42:01

logistics of your visit with? I

42:03

coordinated, we coordinated everything

42:06

through Madeline at the White House. So what

42:08

happened when you went? When we arrived at

42:10

the White House, I was taken, we were

42:12

all taken to the Oval Office. And

42:15

in the Oval Office, Jared Kushner was there, Sean

42:18

Spicer was there. Each of the people

42:20

I brought to the White House was able to take a photo

42:22

with Mr. Trump in the Oval Office. Did the

42:24

subject of Karen McDougall come up at

42:26

all? At the time to have dinner, Mr.

42:29

Trump asked me to join him for a

42:31

walk from the Oval Office to the dining

42:33

area. We passed the Rose

42:35

Garden. As we walked out, President Trump asked me,

42:37

how is Karen doing? He said,

42:39

how's Karen doing? So I said, she's

42:42

doing well, she's quiet, everything is going

42:44

good. And who do you understand Karen

42:46

to be a reference to? Karen

42:48

was Karen McDougall. Yeah,

42:50

I love the detail about his wife did

42:52

not wanna go. Yes. That's

42:55

just not the big Trump fan. Yeah, I

42:57

mean, that's, hmm, interesting.

42:59

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44:46

So then we get into, I think, something

44:48

that hasn't been reported enough, which is

44:51

this meeting that involves Sarah Huckabee Sanders.

44:53

Yeah. And Trump's reaction to Karen McDougall

44:55

having an interview with Anderson Cooper. So

44:58

let's play some of that. Did

45:00

Mr. Trump contact you in connection

45:03

with Ms. McDougall's appearance on Anderson

45:05

Cooper? The following day, I received a

45:07

call from Mr. Trump. Can you tell the

45:09

jury about that call? Yes, Donald called and

45:11

he said to me, he says, he said,

45:14

did you see the interview last night with

45:16

Anderson Cooper and Stormy Daniels? I

45:18

said yes. He said, before

45:21

you go on, right now I'm just

45:23

asking you about the airing of the

45:25

Anderson Cooper interview with Karen McDougall. We'll

45:28

get to the Stormy Daniels interview later.

45:30

Oh. So my question is, did Mr.

45:32

Trump call you in connection with Karen

45:35

McDougall's appearance? Yes, he did. Now, please

45:37

tell us what he told you about that. So

45:39

Mr. Trump said when he called me that he

45:41

said, did you see the Anderson Cooper interview with

45:43

Karen McDougall? I said, yes. He

45:46

said, I thought you had and we had an

45:48

agreement with Karen McDougall that she can't give any

45:50

interviews or be on any television shows. So I

45:53

said, yes. I said, we have an agreement,

45:55

but I amended it to allow her to

45:57

speak to the press. So Mr. Trump got

45:59

very aggressive. when he heard

46:01

that I amended it and he couldn't understand

46:03

why. I said Karen has a two-year agreement

46:05

She was flooded with requests from the press

46:08

for interviews and I amended her agreement at

46:10

that time He said well, then you paid

46:12

her. I said yes, I

46:14

paid her and I amended the agreement So

46:17

he was he was very upset. He

46:19

couldn't understand why I did it and

46:22

that was basically the conversation When you said

46:24

he was very upset He couldn't believe

46:26

that you did it. Who is the

46:28

he you're referring to? He referring to

46:30

Donald Trump Did there come a time after

46:32

that when you spoke with mr. Trump and

46:34

other members of his White House staff? Yes,

46:37

when in relation to the call that you

46:39

had with mr. Trump alone I it was

46:41

right after the call that I had with

46:43

mr. Trump and who else was part of

46:45

that call besides yourself and mr Trump Hope

46:48

Hicks and Sanders, okay

46:51

So we're talking about 2018 here and Trump is

46:53

furious that Karen McDougal is out there telling her

46:55

story and they want to extend The contract for

46:57

another six months and Sanders is in on this

46:59

call and this is at the time when Trump

47:01

is president He's still very concerned about these things

47:03

out there Can you tell the

47:05

jury about that call a bit? Well on that call

47:07

what I was planning to do And

47:10

I mentioned on the previous call mr. Trump that

47:12

was gonna extend Karen McDougal's contract

47:15

It was for six months The contract was up

47:17

and I felt that from the last lunch that

47:19

I had with her that we had fulfilled Some

47:22

of the obligations that she was looking

47:24

for specifically her beauty products and media

47:26

training So I was gonna send a

47:28

contract he thought that was on our

47:30

original conversation He thought that was also

47:32

a bad idea So when I received

47:34

the second call when I got the

47:36

call back and hope Hicks and Huckabee

47:38

Sanders Huckabee When she was

47:40

on the call, I explained to them to the two

47:42

of them that why I was going

47:44

to extend her agreement And both of them said that they thought

47:47

it was a good idea What was the reason that

47:49

you gave for why you wanted to

47:51

extend Karen McDougal's contract? I wanted to extend

47:53

her contract so she would not go out and

47:55

give any further interviews or talk to the press

47:58

or say any negative comments about American

48:00

media or about Mr. Trump? Now, you

48:02

said when you had your individual conversation

48:04

with Mr. Trump, he was skeptical

48:06

of that. Yes. How about when

48:08

you explained the reason that you wanted

48:10

to extend her contract to Mr. Trump,

48:13

Ms. Hicks and Ms. Sanders. How did

48:15

Mr. Trump react to the new plan

48:17

or did he react to that plan during

48:19

that second conversation? He said, it's your

48:22

business. You do whatever you plan on doing.

48:24

Directing your attention to March of 2018, did there come a

48:26

time when Ms.

48:29

McDougall filed a lawsuit against AMI?

48:31

Yes, she did. Briefly, what was the

48:33

nature of that lawsuit? The lawsuit was

48:35

basically for one reason. She wanted,

48:38

she being Karen McDougall, wanted

48:40

to get back her lifetime rights.

48:42

So she wanted out of the

48:44

non-disclosure agreement. That's correct. How was

48:46

that lawsuit ultimately resolved? We settled

48:48

and I returned her lifetime rights

48:50

back to Karen. Did you ever

48:52

communicate with Michael Cohen about the lawsuit

48:54

while it was pending? Yes, I did. And did you

48:56

tell him what you were planning to do? I did.

48:58

And he thought it was a very bad idea. He couldn't

49:01

understand why I would agree to anything like that. I

49:04

told him she's very upset. I'm not going to

49:06

continue on with the potential litigation and I'm just

49:08

going to give her back her rights. Is

49:10

that what you did? Yes. Now, a few

49:12

days after Ms. McDougall's appearance on

49:15

Anderson Cooper, did you also come

49:17

to learn that Stormy Daniels was

49:19

interviewed by Anderson Cooper? Yes. And

49:21

did you watch that broadcast when it

49:23

aired? I did. Did Mr. Trump

49:26

contact you in connection with

49:28

Ms. Daniels appearance on the Anderson Cooper? Yes,

49:30

he did. Can you describe for the jury how

49:33

that conversation went? When Mr. Trump called me, he

49:35

said to me, uh, the same. He

49:37

said, he asked me if I saw the Stormy

49:39

Daniels interview with Anderson Cooper. I said, yes,

49:41

I did. He said that we

49:43

have an agreement with Stormy Daniels that she

49:45

cannot mention my name or do anything like

49:48

this. And each time she breaches the agreement,

49:50

it's $1 million penalty. And

49:52

based on the interview with Anderson Cooper, Stormy Daniels

49:54

owes Donald Trump 24 million. That's

49:57

what Donald Trump told you. That's what he told

49:59

me. Directing your. to early 2018.

50:01

Do you remember receiving a letter

50:03

from the Federal Election Commission around

50:05

that time? Yes, I do. Did you speak

50:07

with Michael Cohen after receiving the letter? Yes.

50:10

Can you describe that conversation for

50:12

us? When I received the letter from

50:15

the Federal Election Commission, the FEC, I

50:18

called up Michael Cohen immediately and

50:20

he, and I just asked him, I

50:22

said, Michael, I said, I just received this

50:24

letter and he, so

50:26

Michael Cohen said, so did I. I said, what are

50:28

you gonna do about that? He said, I'm gonna respond.

50:31

I'm gonna send him a letter. I said, I'm very

50:33

worried and Michael Cohen says to me why

50:35

are you worried? I said, what do

50:37

you mean? He says, Jeff Sessions is the Attorney General

50:39

and Donald Trump has him in his pocket. I

50:42

said, I'm very worried. Directing your attention

50:44

to September 21st, 2018, were you aware that AMI entered into

50:46

a non-prosecution

50:50

agreement and a statement of facts

50:52

with the Southern District of New

50:55

York? Yes. And is the Southern

50:57

District of New York, is it your

50:59

understanding that those are federal prosecutors? Yes,

51:01

I understand that. Were you still

51:03

CEO of AMI at the time that

51:05

agreement was executed? Yes, I was. What is

51:07

your understanding of that non-prosecution

51:09

agreement? We admitted to a campaign

51:12

violation. And? Objection, move

51:14

to strike. Ooh,

51:16

drama. What's going on? We've got an

51:18

objection. So he's saying outright that in

51:21

their non-prosecution agreement they were admitting to

51:23

a campaign violation, which isn't exactly true.

51:25

Ooh, it's not. So there's

51:27

an objection here. There's gonna be a discussion about if

51:29

this is a mass characterization of the agreement or not,

51:31

because obviously the defense is very concerned about not having

51:34

this come out on the record that David Pecker believes

51:36

that it was a campaign violation. He's

51:38

gonna say it as much several different ways. Yeah,

51:40

so what the hell is going on there? Is

51:42

he just wrong? Like he just misremembers it or

51:44

something? Because as only a highly

51:47

trained actor reading, I didn't

51:50

know who was necessarily right about that. Well, let's

51:52

play the rest of this portion. We'll stop again

51:55

in a second. Objection, move

51:57

to strike. Overruled. approach.

52:00

Whereupon the following proceedings were held

52:02

at sidebar. What's the objection? I

52:05

may have misheard. I thought I

52:07

may have heard he admitted to an

52:09

election violation. Can you read that back? Whereupon

52:12

the requested portion was read back by

52:14

the court reporter. I think that's

52:16

a mischaracterization of the agreement. We understand the

52:18

agreement is coming in with a limited instruction.

52:20

We don't think there should be testimony about

52:23

what he did there. The agreement

52:25

is coming in? Yes, we're not going

52:27

to object. It's coming in subject to

52:29

the limiting instructions. When would you like

52:31

the limiting instructions? When it's admitted, please.

52:34

I actually do think that's a fair characterization

52:36

of it. In any event, to the extent

52:38

that the operation of the witness's mind differs

52:40

from the agreement, the agreement will be in

52:42

and everything will be cleared up. That's

52:45

how I read the agreement, is that they

52:47

admitted to a campaign finance violation.

52:49

Whereupon the following proceedings were held

52:51

in open court. The

52:53

objection is overruled. There's this

52:56

whole back and forth about if there's a fair

52:58

characterization by saying it's campaign finance violation, if we

53:00

need to have a limiting instruction to have the

53:02

jury understand some extra context. They kind of clear

53:04

this up by just asking them directly, as a

53:07

result of that, would AMI not be criminally prosecuted

53:09

for campaign finance violations? It's not that he's admitting

53:11

to it. He's saying that by entering into this

53:13

agreement, they're not going to be prosecuted. It's a

53:16

very lawyerly distinction. Really cutting a fine line there.

53:19

As a non-lawyer, he's just like,

53:21

yeah, we ... In

53:23

his mind, it's like, yeah, we did this. This is

53:27

kind of what happens when you do the thing wrong.

53:29

You got to do this agreement. But I guess as

53:31

part of the agreement, it's not an admission of guilt kind

53:34

of thing? Yeah. I mean, if I signed a non-prosecution agreement

53:36

saying I wasn't going to be prosecuted for murder, I don't

53:38

think I would do that for no reason. I think

53:41

it might be a side basis. At

53:43

the same time, you could technically say, never

53:45

admitted to murder. That's right.

53:47

Totally clear on that. Yeah. I just

53:50

happened to ... I had nothing ...

53:52

No, the upper bill of nothing. I

53:54

entered into a non-prosecution agreement on

53:56

some guy's murder. I don't even know who it is. I don't know where it

53:58

is. I don't know what it is. I just was

54:01

walking around and was like, hey, do you want

54:03

to enter into a non-prosecution agreement on a guy's

54:05

murder? I was like, I got nothing better to

54:07

do. Yeah, sure. I was played safe, you know?

54:09

Yeah, true. I don't want to be prosecuted. You

54:11

know what? I don't want to be prosecuted for

54:13

that guy's murder. Yeah,

54:15

so we didn't go on, but the court does give

54:17

a limiting instruction after that. In addition

54:19

to that, did this agreement

54:21

impose a requirement on AMI

54:24

and its representatives to cooperate

54:26

and give truthful testimony and

54:28

information? Yes. As a

54:30

result of that, would AMI not

54:32

be criminally prosecuted for campaign finance

54:34

violations? That is correct. As part

54:36

of that agreement, did AMI

54:38

make several admissions, including in statements

54:40

of facts? Yes, I did. As

54:43

CEO at the time, did

54:45

you review that statement of

54:47

facts before anyone from AMI

54:49

signed the non-prosecution agreement? Yes, I did.

54:51

I would like to show the witness

54:54

privately what's been marked for identification as

54:56

People's Exhibit 182. Whereupon

54:58

an exhibit is shown on the witness screen. Do

55:01

you have that in front of you? Yes, I do.

55:03

I'm going to ask you, do you recognize

55:05

that exhibit? Yes. Is that

55:08

an exact copy of the non-prosecution agreement

55:10

that AMI entered into with the Southern

55:12

District of New York along with the

55:14

statement of admitted facts that's attached to

55:16

the agreement? Yes, it is. I

55:19

offer it into evidence. No objection.

55:21

Would you like the instruction at

55:23

this time? Yes, Your Honor, thank

55:25

you. Jurors, we have just heard

55:27

testimony that while David Pecker was

55:29

an executive at AMI, AMI

55:32

entered into a non-prosecution

55:34

agreement with federal prosecutors,

55:37

as well as a conciliation agreement

55:39

with the Federal Election Commission. That

55:41

evidence was permitted to assist you,

55:43

the jury, in

55:46

assessing David Pecker's credibility and

55:48

to help provide context for some of

55:50

those surrounding events. You

55:52

may consider that testimony for

55:55

those purposes only. Neither the

55:57

non-prosecution agreement nor the conciliation

55:59

agreement. is evidence of the

56:01

defendant's guilt and you may not

56:04

consider them in determining whether this

56:06

defendant is guilty or not guilty

56:08

of the charged crimes. Thank you,

56:10

Judge. So the court gives

56:13

a limiting instruction just to remind them that the

56:15

whole purpose of this is to talk about credibility

56:17

and that the non-prosecution agreement is not evidence of

56:19

guilt and you can't consider that, you

56:21

know, about whether or not he committed campaign finance violations.

56:23

Hmm. Okay, explain that. So,

56:25

you know, we've talked a lot about this,

56:27

you know, understanding the fact that, you know,

56:29

you get these motions in the lemonade and

56:32

you get these rules to make sure stuff's

56:34

not too prejudicial, get it? But are they,

56:36

is he really saying that you can't use

56:38

the fact that he had, he agreed to

56:40

a non-prosecution agreement about campaign finance violations?

56:43

You can't use that to evaluate

56:45

whether or not Donald Trump was a

56:48

part of a conspiracy kind of violating

56:50

campaign finance rules? Right. You

56:52

can just view the agreement for what it is and

56:54

you can decide about Becker's credibility as he's talking about

56:57

it and that's about it. I mean, obviously that's a

56:59

fine line. I'm not sure. I was going

57:01

to say, if I was a juror, I don't know that I would know what the

57:03

hell that means. Yeah, sure. Like,

57:05

so the guy, in his own words

57:07

he thinks he admitted to campaign finance

57:09

violations, he's telling us that Trump

57:12

kind of directed that, but I'm not allowed

57:14

to use that as evident. Yeah, I

57:16

don't know. So I guess, okay, is the distinction

57:18

that you're not allowed to think as a juror,

57:20

hey, this is like black

57:22

and white, it's on paper officially,

57:24

this is campaign finance violations, but

57:27

you are allowed to think like, well,

57:29

okay, that was a problem, campaign finance

57:31

violations based on this agreement's existence or

57:34

is it not even that? Is it

57:36

that you have to evaluate Becker's testimony

57:38

based on this? Boy,

57:40

that's hard to parse. I don't know what's going on. It

57:42

is. Yeah, but essentially, it's just how credible do you think

57:44

it is that he thinks he committed campaign violations or why

57:46

would he sign the agreement? What was his motive in doing

57:48

that? You can look at all that kind of thing. But

57:51

yeah, again, this is, I don't know

57:54

how much this registers with juries. I don't know how

57:56

much people really... No, I wanted to ask you if

57:58

I haven't already. Part of me wonders... is it's

58:00

like these hair splitting things that you

58:03

lawyers, you lawyers argue about and

58:05

the jury's like, I don't know what any of that

58:07

is, man. I don't know. I just

58:09

heard a guy say he violated campaign finance

58:11

rules. So he violated campaign finance

58:13

rules, I don't know. Yeah, if a lawyer

58:15

was chanch EPT and you could just say,

58:18

give me an answer that doesn't account for whatever I just told

58:20

you, right? Then that's not how brains work,

58:22

that's not how people work, I don't know. All

58:28

right, that's as much as I could get

58:30

done for this first episode, this first installment, and

58:32

you can expect much more to come. Please

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support the show, it's so important. It really

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