“CATCH AND KILL”
Prosecutors have said the Daniels payment was part of a broader “catch and kill” scheme hatched by Trump, Cohen and David Pecker – the former chief executive of tabloid publisher American Media – to pay off people with potentially damaging information about Trump before the November 2016 election. Trump defeated Democrat Hillary Clinton.
Colangelo said Trump said in his business records that he was paying Cohen for legal expenses.
“Those were lies. There was no retainer agreement, Cohen was not being paid for legal services,” Colangelo said. “The defendant falsified those business records because he wanted to conceal his and others’ criminal conduct.”
The defendant disguised his reimbursements to Michael Cohen through 11 falsified invoices, 12 falsified ledger entries, and 11 falsified checks, Colangelo said.
Pecker is the first witness prosecutors plan to call after opening statements, the New York Times and CNN reported on Sunday. According to prosecutors, Pecker agreed during an August 2015 meeting with Trump and Cohen to act as the campaign’s “eyes and ears” by looking out for negative stories about Trump.
American Media, which publishes the National Enquirer, in 2018 admitted that it paid US$150,000 to former Playboy magazine model Karen McDougal for rights to her story about a months-long affair with Trump in 2006 and 2007. American Media said it worked “in concert” with Trump’s campaign, and it never published a story.
The tabloid reached a similar deal to pay US$30,000 to a doorman who was seeking to sell a story about Trump allegedly fathering a child out of wedlock, which turned out to be false, according to prosecutors.
Trump has said the payments were personal and did not violate election law. He has also denied the affair with McDougal.
In the New York trial, Trump is charged with falsely recording his 2017 reimbursement of Cohen for the Daniels payment as a legal expense in his real estate company’s books. Prosecutors say he did so to conceal the fact that Cohen’s payment exceeded the US$2,700 limit on individual campaign contributions at the time.
Testimony about those payments could help prosecutors establish that Cohen’s payment to Daniels was part of a broader pattern.
Prosecutors plan to call at least 20 witnesses total, according to Trump’s defense team. The trial could last six to eight weeks.
Trump faces three other criminal indictments stemming from his efforts to overturn his 2020 election defeat and his handling of classified documents after leaving the White House in 2021.
Trump has pleaded not guilty in those cases, and he portrays all of them as a broad-based effort by Biden’s Democratic allies to undercut his campaign.
Merchan, who is overseeing the hush money trial, imposed a limited gag order on Trump after he criticised witnesses, prosecutors, the judge and his daughter. Prosecutors are pressing Merchan to penalise Trump for violating that order.
