Hush Money Witness Confesses He Created Negative False Stories About Trump’s 2016 Campaign Rivals
Former boss of the National Enquirer, David Pecker, offered explosive testimony in Donald Trump's hush money trial. He admitted to making up fake negative stories about Trump's opponents ahead of the 2016 presidential elections, Inside Edition reported. “...What I would do is I would run or publish positive stories about Mr. Trump and I would publish negative stories about his opponents,” Pecker confessed while taking the stand in the Manhattan criminal court, according to CNN.
Pecker went into great detail about how he collaborated with Michael Cohen, Trump's ex-lawyer, to 'catch and kill' articles that would have hurt the candidate.
He added that he acted as Trump's 'eyes and ears', warning the candidate's team of potentially harmful rumors that were about to surface. “If there were any rumors in the marketplace about Mr. Trump or his family or any negative stories that were coming out or things that I heard overall that I would go through, I would call Michael Cohen directly.”
Additionally, Pecker stated that the Enquirer would “communicate what we were doing at the direction of the article from Michael Cohen,” including providing PDF files of the articles ahead of time to the then-Trump attorney.
Together, Pecker and Cohen sought to defame Ben Carson, Ted Cruz, and Marco Rubio—three of Trump's Republican primary opponents. “After the Republican debates, I would receive a call from Michael Cohen,” and depending on who did well that night, “he would direct me which candidate to target,” Pecker testified.
“Michael Cohen would call me and say, ‘We would like you to run a negative article on a certain — let’s say for argument sake — on Ted Cruz, then he — Michael Cohen — would send me information about Ted Cruz or Ben Carson or Marco Rubio, and that was the basis of our story and then we would embellish it from there,” Pecker told the courtroom.
Trump and David Pecker conspired to mislead the American people prior to the 2016 election by killing damaging stories about Trump and by planting false stories about Trump’s opponents. Both of them are anti-American traitors.#WednesdayMotivation pic.twitter.com/Ym4wWiHH4a
— SM (@sensiblemiddle) April 24, 2024
The infamous National Enquirer report that claimed Rafael Cruz, Ted's father, plotted with Lee Harvey Oswald, the killer of John F. Kennedy, was bogus. The photo attached to the fake story, featuring Rafaek with Oswald, was photoshopped.
At the time, Trump had highlighted the false narrative on television. As reported by Politico, Trump asserted, “What was he doing with Lee Harvey Oswald shortly before his death? Before the shooting? It’s horrible.”
Umm. David Pecker testifies that he had a joint call with Hope Hicks and Sarah Huckabee Sanders — taxpayer funded WH officials, at the time — about whether Karen McDougal’s contract should be extended. "Both of them said that they thought it was a good idea," Pecker said.
— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) April 25, 2024
Additionally, Pecker testified that Trump was overjoyed whenever the Enquirer published unfavorable articles on Bill and Hillary Clinton, his Democratic rival from 2016. “He was pleased,” Pecker recalled.
He testified that the program was confidential, and was run through a covert email account that no one knew about. He disclosed it to only a few, including Dylan Howard, the senior editor at the time. “I told him we’re going to try to help the campaign and to do that, I want to keep this as quiet as possible,” Pecker said.
