Opening statements and David Pecker as the first witness on tap for Trump hush money trial – NBC News
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Donald Trump “orchestrated a criminal scheme to corrupt” the 2016 presidential election, a prosecutor told jurors Monday during opening statements in the first-ever criminal trial of a former president.
“This case is about criminal conspiracy,” prosecutor Matthew Colangelo told the 12-person jury and six alternates. Trump, he said, conspired to corrupt the 2016 presidential election by conspiring with his lawyer Michael Cohen and David Pecker, who was the publisher of the National Enquirer at the time.
“Then, he covered up that criminal conspiracy by lying in his New York business records over and over and over again,” Colangelo said.
Pecker was called as the prosecution’s first witness following opening statements from both sides. Trump’s lawyer Todd Blanche told the jury his client was not guilty because there was no crime committed.
Trump, who had his eyes closed for periods of time during the morning proceedings, seemed much more engaged when his old ally and friend Pecker was taking the stand. Trump craned his neck when Pecker walked in, Trump craned his neck, almost as if trying to see if Pecker would meet his eye. Trump also poked at his attorney Emil Bove and whispered something as Pecker, 72, got situated, and leaned forward attentively when he began testifying.
Pecker did not get to his relationship with Trump by the time the court day ended. The proceedings ended early because a juror had an emergency dental appointment.
Trump told reporters afterward the case is “unfair” and launched into an attack against Cohen, who’s expected to be called as witness in the case.
“When are they going to look at all the lies that Cohen did in the last trial. He got caught lying in the last trial. Pure lying,” Trump said, apparently referring to Cohen’s statement in the civil fraud case against Trump that he lied under oath during part of his 2018 guilty plea. “When are they going to look at that?” Trump said.
Those comments are likely to come up at a hearing Tuesday morning, when Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office is scheduled to make arguments that Trump has repeatedly violated a partial gag order barring him from making “public statements about known or reasonably foreseeable witnesses concerning their potential participation in the investigation or in this criminal proceeding.”
Prosecutors have said Cohen and Pecker, the longtime former publisher of the National Enquirer, are central figures in the alleged scheme to bury claims from women who said they had affairs with Trump.
Colangelo told the jury they will hear about a 2015 meeting at Trump Tower with Trump, Cohen and Pecker. Both Cohen and Pecker had specific roles to play in the scheme, the prosecutor said. “Cohen’s job really was to take care of problems for the defendant,” Colangelo said. “He was Trump’s fixer.” Pecker, meanwhile, would act as “the eyes and ears” for the candidate and would let him and Cohen know about any allegations that could hurt his campaign.
The DA alleges the three conspired to hide “damaging information from the voting public.” That included allegations from a former Playboy model named Karen McDougal who said she had a 10-month sexual relationship with Trump that ended in April 2007. Pecker’s AMI agreed to pay her $150,000 in a deal to essentially buy her silence -a practice that was referred to as “catch and kill.” Trump has denied McDougal’s claims.
The situation took on a greater sense of urgency for Trump in October of 2016. That’s when the Washington Post published the “Access Hollywood” tape, which caught Trump on a hot mic saying he could grope women without their consent because “when you’re a star, they let you do it.”
Judge Juan Merchan barred the DA from playing the tape for jury for fear it would be too prejudicial, but did allow them to use a transcript of his remarks.
Colangelo said the impact of the tape was “immediate and explosive.” “The defendant and his campaign were concerned that it would irrevocably damage him with female voters,” the prosecutor said, and “the campaign went into immediate damage control mode.”
It was around that time the Enquirer heard that adult film actress Stormy Daniels was interested in coming forward with a claim that she had a sexual encounter with Trump in 2006. Trump was “adamant” he didn’t want that claim, which he denies, to become public for fear it would be “devastating” to his campaign, Colangelo said.
Cohen then struck a deal to buy her silence for $130,000, the prosecutor said.
“It was election fraud, pure and simple,” Colangelo said, adding “We’ll never know, and it doesn’t matter, if this conspiracy was a difference maker in the close election.”
Colangelo said Trump’s company the Trump Organization couldn’t cut Cohen a check with the memo “reimbursement for porn star payoff” so “they agreed to cook the books” and make it look like the reimbursement was income.
The payments were classified as retainer agreement payments for Cohen, but “there was no retainer agreement,” Colangelo said.
“It was instead what they thought was a clever way to pay Cohen back without being too obvious about it,” he said. But what they did was a crime, he said. “Donald Trump is guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree,” Colangelo concluded.
Trump’s attorney Blanche countered in his opening statement that his client has not committed any crimes. “The story you just heard, you will learn, is not true,” Blanche said.
He said the only thing Trump did was sign checks for legal services rendered by his lawyer.
“The invoice is processed, somebody at Trump Tower generated a check, the check was ultimately signed, and there was a record in the ledger,” Blanche said. “He’s the only signatory on his personal checking account, which is why he signed the check.”
“So what on earth is a crime? What’s a crime, of what I just described?” Blanche said. “None of this is a crime,” he said, adding that non-disclosure agreements like the one Daniels signed are legal.
As for the election interference argument, Blanche said, “I have a spoiler alert: there’s nothing wrong with trying to influence an election. It’s called democracy.”
In a preview of his trial strategy, Blanche also attacked Daniels and Cohen’s character and credibility. He accused the actress, who he described as “extremely biased,” of trying to “extort” Trump, a word that the judge ordered stricken from the record. He then said what she’d been threatening to do by going public with her allegation was “sinister” and “damaging to him and damaging to his family.”
Blanche also said that her testimony, while salacious, does not matter because she doesn’t know anything about how Cohen was repaid.
The bulk of Blanche’s attacks were reserved for Cohen, who pleaded guilty in 2018 to numerous crimes, including some that he said he carried out on Trump’s behalf.
“Michael Cohen was obsessed with President Trump. He’s obsessed with President Trump, even to this day,” Blanche said, calling him a “convicted felon” and a “convicted liar.”
“He has talked extensively about his desire to see President Trump go to prison,” Blanche said, including in public on Sunday.
He told the jury if they listen to the evidence, they’ll return “a very swift not guilty verdict.”
Trump faces 34 counts of falsifying business records related to the hush money payment to Daniels. The former president, who has pleaded not guilty to the charges, could face up to four years in prison if convicted.
On his way into the courtroom, Trump told reporters, “It’s a very, very sad day in America. I can tell you that.”
The day got off to a rough start for Trump, with Judge Juan Merchan ruling that if he winds up taking the stand in his own defense, prosecutors can cross-examine him about a New York judge’s finding he and his business committed “persistent” fraud and violated a gag order, juries finding him civilly responsible for sexual abuse and defamation in the E. Jean Carroll cases, and a settlement in case that found he used his now-shuttered foundation to improperly further his campaign in the 2016 election. Trump’s attorneys had argued that all of those topics should be out of bounds.
Trump did not show concern — he sat with his eyes closed through much of the judge’s ruling. He briefly opened his eyes when the jury was brought in for the judge’s instructions, and then closed them again.
Bragg was sitting in the front row of the courtroom ahead of opening statements.
Cohen, Daniels and McDougal are also expected to testify during the trial, which is estimated to take six weeks.
The jury consists of seven men and five women. The final day of jury selection, on Friday, was particularly intense, as some potential jurors broke down in tears and said they were too anxious to be seated on the jury. They were excused. The day also saw a man set himself on fire outside the courthouse.
Trial proceedings on Tuesday will be abbreviated as well, ending at 2 p.m. ET because of the Passover holiday.
Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass said in court Friday that the DA’s office planned to call one witness Monday. Trump attorney Susan Necheles on Friday asked for the witness’ identity, but Steinglass refused to disclose it, noting that Trump has attacked witnesses, including Cohen, in social media posts despite a partial gag order forbidding such action.
The judge called Steinglass’ position “understandable” and said he would not order prosecutors to reveal the witness before Sunday. In court Monday, Bove said they weren’t informed Pecker would be the witness until 3 p.m. on Sunday.
Adam Reiss is a reporter and producer for NBC and MSNBC.
Dareh Gregorian is a politics reporter for NBC News.
Jonathan Allen is a senior national politics reporter for NBC News, based in Washington.
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