Hush-money trial live: Trump appears to repeat call for lifting of gag order after Pecker testimony ends – as it happened

Farro’s testimony is done for the day, and the jurors have left.

As Trump left the courtroom for the weekend, he seemed to flatten his lips, as if in recognition of an observer.

Farro just discussed Cohen’s interest in opening up an account for Essential Consultants LLC, which he claimed was for a real estate consulting business.

While testimony about bank records is most often very dry, observers have had a brief reprieve due to Farro’s sense of humor. “When Mr Cohen called me, I was on the golf course,” Farro said, offering a wry smile. “Very cliche for a banker, I know.”

Farro is now talking about Michael Cohen’s establishment of a business bank account for Resolution Consultants LLC.

Farro explained that it hadn’t officially been opened because Cohen hadn’t deposited money in the account.

The next witness called to the stand is Gary Farro, who works at Flagstar Bank.

Let’s hear what he has to say.

After Rhona Graff’s testimony, Donald Trump left the courtroom without speaking to reporters gathered in the hallway outside.

Someone from the press shouted a question about why Stormy Daniels had been at Trump Tower, but Trump did not respond.

Necheles worked hard to downplay Daniels’ presence at Trump Tower.

She asked about the evolution of The Apprentice. “He wanted people who were sort of controversial sometimes, right?” Necheles asked. Did Graff ever get the sense that Daniels was trying out for a slot?

“I vaguely recall hearing … that she was one of the people that may be an interesting contestant on the show,” Graff said.

“And the prosecutor just referred to her as an adult film actress, correct?” Necheles asked.

“Uh, yes,” Graff replied.

Necheles then asked: ”You understood that to mean, colloquially speaking, a porn star?”

“I’d say that’s a good synonym,” Graff replied.

Asked if she’d heard Trump say that Daniels was potentially being considered, Graff replied: “I can’t recall a specific instance where I heard it, it was part of the office chatter.”

“You understood that she was there to discuss being cast for The Apprentice, correct?” Necheles inquired.

“I assumed that,” Graff said.

Susan Necheles, an attorney for Trump, is handling the cross-examination of Graff.

“Was he a good boss?” Necheles asked early on.

“I think that he was fair,” said Graff, who worked for Trump for 34 years. “He was fair and a respectful boss to me … all that time.”

Hoffinger also asked Graff about Trump’s email contacts.

Graff said that Karen McDougal’s information was in Trump’s contacts; there was also someone named “Stormy”.

Hoffinger asked whether, on one occasion, she saw Stormy Daniels at Trump Tower.

“I have a vague recollection of seeing her in the reception area on the 26th floor,” she said, adding that to the best of her recollection, this was before the 2016 election.

“When you saw her at Trump Tower, did you know she was an adult film actress?” Hoffinger asked.

”Yes, I did,” Graff replied.

An attorney for Trump then rose to cross-examine Graff.

Graff, who was Trump’s longtime executive assistant, said that she is testifying pursuant to a subpoena.

Prosecutor Susan Hoffinger asked whether she had lawyers with her today. Graff said yes. Who was paying for the attorneys, Hoffinger pressed” “The Trump Organization,” Graff said.

And who did she understand to be the current owner of the Trump Organization? “Mr Trump,” Graff replied.

We’re again discussing David Pecker’s unwillingness to deal with the Stormy Daniel story – and why he nonetheless urged Michael Cohen to snap up her account.

On the stand, Pecker recalled discussing money for payoffs with Cohen. “I said to Michael Cohen, after paying for the doorman and the Karen McDougal story, I wasn’t going to pay anything further and I wasn’t a bank,” Pecker told jurors. He also described, again, his discussions with Dylan Howard when the Stormy Daniels story came to light.

“When he first reach out to you about the story, what did you tell Dylan Howard?” Steinglass asked.

“I told Dylan Howard that there is no possible way would I buy this story for $120,000 and I didn’t want to have anything to do with a porn star.”

Why did he contact Cohen about Daniels?

“Based on our original agreement,” Pecker recalled, “any stories … that would be very embarrassing, I want to communicate that to Michael Cohen right away. If he heard it from somebody else, [Cohen] would go ballistic.”

“But you were still going to fulfil your obligation … so that the campaign could squash it?” Steinglass pressed.

Pecker said yes.

And David Pecker is back on the witness stand.

Joshua Steinglass of the prosecution has more questions for him.

Trump is walking back into the courtroom, trailed by attorney Todd Blanche and several secret service officers.

Emil Bove, who conducted the cross-examination of former National Enquirer published David Pecker, followed.

Here is a refresher on David Pecker, one of the key witnesses in Donald Trump’s hush-money criminal trial.

The Guardian’s Martin Pengelly reports:

As the longtime chief executive of American Media Inc, Pecker developed a symbiotic relationship between Donald Trump and the National Enquirer, an AMI tabloid specialising in salacious scandal …

Pecker is a key witness (with a non-prosecution deal) because when Trump ran for president in 2016, Pecker helped Michael Cohen, Trump’s former attorney and fixer, orchestrate payoffs to Daniels, Karen McDougal (a former Playboy model who also claimed an affair) and a Trump Tower doorman trying to sell a story about a supposed illegitimate child.

For further details, click here:

Steinglass also pressed: “What was your understanding about the part of the agreement that involved money?”

“My understanding is, those stories that come up, I would speak to Michael Cohen, and tell him that these are the stories that are going to be for sale that if we don’t buy them, somebody else will, and that Michael Cohen would buy them or make sure that they don’t ever get published. That was my understanding from that meeting,” Pecker said.

On redirect, Steinglass is working doggedly to show that Pecker’s work to publish stories on Trump’s opponents was not business as usual, as Bove might suggest.

Pecker, under questioning, admitted that the payouts to women who had accused Arnold Schwarzenegger of misconduct around his California gubernatorial campaign were paid anywhere from $500 to $20,000.

Steinglass’s point of eliciting this testimony was to show that payouts were rarely, if ever, the more-than-$100,000 sums paid to McDougal and Daniels. Steinglass asked whether Pecker had ever let a candidate drive and edit coverage. “Uh, no,” he said.

The court is now on break.

Donald Trump has left the courtroom.

Steinglass grilled Pecker about the federal non-prosecution agreement, where he had outlined the conspiracy while meeting with prosecutors.

Steinglass asked about the fifth paragraph of this non-prosecution agreement, which said that the “principle purpose” of the deal between Pecker’s company AMI and Karen McDougal, who alleged an affair with Trump, was to prevent her account from surfacing as he ran for president.

Steinglass asked Pecker: Was his purpose in locking down rights to McDougal’s story to influence the election?

Pecker said yes. Were other perks in McDougal’s agreement – such as promises to put her on the tabloid’s cover – actual benefits, or to hide the true purpose of the payments?

“It was included in the contract, basically as a disguise,” Pecker said.

Bove has been drilling down into the non-prosecution agreement, which was brokered after Pecker met with federal authorities and told them about the August 2015 meeting with Donald Trump and his attorney Michael Cohen, and the scheme’s machinations.

Bove asked Pecker whether, during a meeting with the Manhattan district attorney, his lawyers took issue with the accuracy of the agreement.

Pecker pushed back and said that concern over accuracy was insignificant, involving the use of the word purchase and sell which, in his view, were interchangeable. Pecker explained that in this context, sell and purchase both referred to snatching stories off the market.

The defense also tried to ask Pecker more about Cohen. Was there a time that Cohen claimed, falsely, that Trump had then-US attorney general Jeff Sessions “in his pocket”?

“Based on your experience, Michael Cohen was prone to exaggeration?” Bove asked. Pecker said that was the case.

Bove appears to be using Pecker’s testimony to pick apart the credibility of Cohen, a former consigliere to Trump who is expected to testify at some point in the trial.

Bove has grilled Pecker about the non-prosecution agreement between AMI and federal prosecutors reached in September 2018. Before that month, Pecker was trying to sell the National Enquirer to Hudson News.

“In addition to the unpleasantness of sitting with the FBI, that put some pressure on the negotiations,” Bove intimated of Pecker’s discussions with federal authorities. “It would add on to the stress of the transaction?” Bove also asked: would the federal investigation have to wrap before the National Enquirer could be sold?

The implication, of course, is that Pecker might have been a little bit hasty in ascribing so much responsibility to Cohen and Trump in his chats with the feds. Bove’s line of questioning is implying that AMI entered into a non-prosecution agreement under duress – undermining Pecker’s statements to authorities that the company was involved with the payoff scheme.

Former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker remains on the witness stand, and is being cross-examined by Emil Bove, who represents Donald Trump.

Once Bove wraps up, prosecutors from Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg’s team will get another chance at questioning Pecker.

The trial has now resumed.

Bove has been asking about Keith Davidson, McDougal’s and adult film actor Stormy Daniels’ former attorney, and his relationship with Dylan Howard, the National Enquirer’s editor-in-chief at the time of the alleged scheme.

Pecker confirmed to Bove that Davidson was a “major source” for Howard.

“He was also friends with Cohen, correct?” Bove asked. Pecker again said yes.

But “you didn’t learn about the Cohen-Davidson connection” until AMI brokered a non-prosecution agreement with federal prosecutors in September 2018 – about one month after Cohen pleaded guilty to various crimes, including charges related to campaign contributions. Pecker said that was correct.

“And you don’t know what Cohen and Davidson were doing on the side, do you?” Pecker said he did not.

It seems that Bove is trying to downplay to jurors Pecker’s role in any purported conspiracy. By suggesting that Cohen and Davidson engaged in backroom dealing, this seems to sap Pecker of his power to control the narrative by controlling people’s stories. And if Pecker didn’t hold the cards because of any surreptitious discussions, his potential to influence the election seems less likely.

Bove also tried to undermine any idea that Trump had reason to be concerned about McDougal.

He asked Pecker about Trump’s call to his office sometime after word of McDougal’s story.

Pecker told Trump he didn’t think it was true that a Mexican media group had offered to buy the account of an alleged affair for $8m.

“As you sit here today, do you remember during that conversation, you said to President Trump: ‘It is my understanding that she doesn’t want her story published’?”

“Yes, I did, I remember saying that,” Pecker said.

Back in the courtroom, Bove tried to undermine the notion that McDougal represented a threat to Trump’s reputation.

If she didn’t constitute an actual problem, then giving her money wasn’t meant to influence the election, Bove seems to suggest.

“President Trump did not pay you any money related to Karen McDougal?” Bove asked. “No,” replied Pecker.

“When you first heard about this story, you understood that Ms McDougal did not want to publish it?”

“Yes.”

“She did not want to?” Bove asked.

“She did not want to,” Pecker replied.

Bove then asked whether “it was standard operating procedure” for the National Enquirer to repackage news in the public domain.

He pointed to the tabloid’s coverage of medical malpractice suits against Ben Carson, a rival Republican presidential candidate in 2016.

“In May 2015, long before any articles on this [National Enquirer] page, the Guardian had covered this issue?” Bove noted that the Guardian’s article referenced seven malpractice claims against Carson before the National Enquirer published content on Carson’s scorecard as a physician.

The point of Bove’s questioning here might be to show that Pecker wasn’t going out of his way to publish content that helped Trump’s presidential aspiration, but rather that it was just a good business practice. By discussing the regurgitative process of using others’ content for the scandal sheet, Bove is trying to undermine the strength of any alleged conspiracy.

Trump defense attorney Emil Bove has resumed his cross-examination of Pecker.

“We were talking about Hope Hicks, right?” Bove asked, referring to the former campaign and White House aide to Trump. Pecker answered in the affirmative.

Bove is going over Pecker’s prior direct testimony about Hicks. Pecker said that he knew Hicks prior to August 2015; she’d worked at Hiltzik Strategies and did work for Star magazine. Pecker also said that Hicks was in and out of the now-infamous Trump Tower meeting in which they allegedly planned to catch and kill damaging information to protect the then candidate in the 2016 election.

“It’s not as if you’re saying that she participated in the meeting, correct?” Bove pressed. Pecker again answered yes. And he did not recall Hicks speaking during the meeting? Correct, Pecker said.

Former American Media Inc (AMI) head David Pecker has taken his seat at the witness stand once again in the hush-money criminal trial of his longtime pal Donald Trump.

It’s Pecker’s fourth day testifying. The veteran tabloid honcho has testified that he colluded with Trump and Michael Cohen to keep negative stories about the real estate mogul from surfacing. Pecker told jurors that shortly after Trump announced his candidacy in summer 2015, the three met at Trump Tower. Pecker said he would apprise them if any potentially damaging information had surfaced. Prosecutors contend this agreement was at the heart of a “catch-and-kill” scheme, which Trump used to influence the 2016 election in his favor.

Pecker said on the stand that AMI, which publishes the National Enquirer, paid $30,000 to a former Trump Tower doorman who claimed that Trump had fathered a child out of wedlock. AMI also footed the bill for a $150,000 payment to Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model who claimed to have had an affair with Trump in 2006.

Pecker also said he told Cohen that he needed to buy adult actress Stormy Daniels’ story about a sexual liaison with Trump. This $130,000 payment to Daniels is at the core of the prosecution’s case. They contend that Trump listed repayment to Cohen as legal expenses in his business records. The 34 counts of falsifying business records involve his alleged misrepresentation of these payments to Cohen.

Donald Trump has arrived at the courthouse and, as he usually does, given brief remarks to reporters before heading into the courtroom.

It was the usual from the former president – the case is “unconstitutional”, the judge is biased and the courtroom is too cold.

He wished his wife, Melania, a happy birthday, and noted that she was in Florida. “‘I’ll be going there this evening after this case finishes up – this horrible, unconstitutional case.”

He then went after Judge Juan Merchan, saying he “is highly conflicted, the most highly conflicted judge I have ever seen”.

The final target of his opprobrium was the courtroom thermostat. “We have another day of court in a freezing courthouse. It’s very cold in there, for one purpose, I believe. They don’t seem to be able to get the temperature up. It shouldn’t be that complicated.”

Donald Trump aide Jason Miller emerged from a courtroom next to the one where the ex-president’s trial is taking place, in New York’s criminal court building.

He told the assembled press that Trump would appear at about 9.30am and give remarks – about 10 minutes from now.

Earlier this morning, wire photographers spotted the former president departing Trump Tower for his trial in Lower Manhattan:

Meanwhile, over at the US supreme court, there was a different Trump issue at play yesterday – arguments on whether the president should be immune from prosecution for acts done while in office.

The justices expressed interest in returning Trump’s criminal case over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election back to a lower court to decide whether certain parts of the indictment were “official acts” that were protected by presidential immunity.

During oral arguments, the justices appeared unlikely to grant Trump’s request for absolute immunity from criminal prosecution. But Trump’s lawyer and the justice department’s lawyer agreed there were certain private acts that presidents would have no protection for.

But the chief justice, John Roberts, and the conservative justices seemed to imply that presidents should have some level of immunity, and looked likely to favor the presiding trial judge in the case deciding whether any acts in the indictment were official and should be expunged.

My colleague Sam Levine was at the Manhattan courthouse yesterday to see Pecker’s testimony firsthand. Here are his main takeaways: