A longtime tabloid publisher is expected to tell jurors about his efforts to help Donald Trump stifle unflattering stories during the 2016 campaign.
A longtime tabloid publisher is expected to tell jurors about his efforts to help Donald Trump stifle unflattering stories during the 2016 campaign.
That’s not a very accurate analogy.
Pecker paid for exclusivity of three different stories, but didn’t run them. The first time, he paid a doorman who claimed that Trump has an illegitimate child $300K for his story, with a $1M penalty for sharing the story anywhere else until after the campaign. The conversations were recorded in voice and text by Cohen, who will corroborate during his testimony.
How is dividing all campaign contributions as either money, or not money an inaccurate analogy? It’s not really an analogy. Services rendered to campaigns have rules. That’s part of the issue here. Trump cooked the books to hide potential campaign finance violations.
The prosecution needs to prove that Trump knowingly used that money for cover up. The defense states that money was paid to Cohen as compensation for campaign-related work. That’s not illegal. Cohen states he paid Pecker and Daniels to cover up stories that would be detrimental to Trump’s campaign, and later received reimbursement payments from Trump. That is illegal. Cohen’s testimony, corroborated by Pecker, is what makes it a crime.