With the whirlwind hush money trial of former President Donald Trump now come to a close, it’s a good time to reflect on the pivotal moments that helped guide the prosecution into getting a jury to find Trump guilty of all 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.
While much has been made of the blockbuster testimony from Trump’s notorious former fixer and lawyer Michael Cohen, I believe the most important testimony in securing a swift guilty verdict came from former CEO of American Media and former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker.
Pecker became the eyes and ears of the jury into the conspiracy to promote Trump’s election by unlawful means.
I was initially perplexed at why the prosecution would lead off with Pecker, but it quickly became clear what a wise and strategically brilliant decision it was.
Pecker, once a close friend of Trump’s, detailed for the jury his almost four-decadeslong relationship with Trump and described the former reality TV star and then-presidential hopeful as a mentor. Pecker testified that he promised Trump that he would be his “eyes and ears” during the 2016 presidential campaign. He told the jury he had promised Trump that in his role as National Enquirer publisher he would give Cohen a heads-up on negative stories and try to suppress them and arrange to purchase the silence of “Dino the doorman.”
In the course of his testimony, Pecker became the eyes and ears of the jury into the conspiracy to promote Trump’s election by unlawful means. That is the New York election law crime that is the “other crime” that the jury found Trump intended to commit or conceal when he made the false entries in the Trump Organization’s business records. And that is why calling Pecker as their first witness was such a wise and strategic decision by prosecutors.
For prosecutors, trials are won or lost based on the credibility of their witnesses. And as witnesses go, Pecker was a very credible and affable one. He carried none of the “baggage” of final prosecution witness Cohen, whom the defense worked mightily to paint as not credible based on the lies he told on behalf of Trump.
Perhaps most importantly, Pecker was unquestionably his authentic self on the stand. He brought the jury into the August 2015 Trump Tower meeting where the conspiracy to influence the election was hatched. It is not surprising that the jury requested testimony read back principally involving Pecker and that Trump Tower meeting. The jury requested readback: 1. Regarding Pecker’s phone conversation with Trump where Trump asked him to assist with the campaign; 2. Pecker’s testimony regarding the Trump Tower meeting; 3. Pecker’s testimony regarding Karen McDougal; and 4. Cohen’s testimony regarding the Trump Tower meeting.
As a former prosecutor who has sat through the reading of many jury notes, I knew then that the prosecution team was pleased and even cautiously optimistic that a conviction was probably certain. And less than five hours later, cautious optimism became a reality.
We now await Trump’s sentencing on July 11, when Judge Juan Merchan will determine the details of sentencing, including whether prison time will be served and, if so, how much. In the historic finding of what will likely be remembered as one of the trials of the century, Pecker’s testimony delivers an important lesson: Among other things, how media executives not performing a legitimate press function have an outsize influence over public information and, in this case, possibly a presidential election. We also learned that “everyday” participants who made up the jury for this trial would not stand for that transgression when, fortunately, the rule of law and our constitutional principles prevailed in a Manhattan courtroom last week.
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