Trump trial highlights: Former Trump assistant testifies about Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal

The trial will resume Tuesday with testimony from Gary Farro.

Assistant District Attorney Rebecca Mangold is questioning Farro about bank paperwork associated with Cohen opening an account for an LLC.

Prosecutors are asking Farro about the meaning of a series of bank-related documents and communications.

Farro, the banker, said Cohen was assigned to him in 2015 after a colleague left First Republic Bank.

Cohen had been a client of the bank for at least a couple of years, Farro said. He added that he was told that he was selected to work with Cohen because of his knowledge and his “ability to handle individuals who might be a little ... challenging.”

Farro went on to say that Cohen “did a lot of his own business” and that he didn't find him “difficult.”

Farro testified that there are lines of business that the bank decided it won't do business with, including gambling, adult entertainment and check cashing.

Farro explains that he works at Flagstar Bank but worked at First Republic Bank for 15 years, beginning in 2002.

He allegedly helped set up the home equity line of credit through which Cohen paid Daniels. He is the third witness to testify.

Trump attorney Susan Necheles began to suggest that casting for the show "The Celebrity Apprentice" was why the former president had Stormy Daniels' phone number.

“He thought that she would be an interesting addition to 'The Apprentice,'" Necheles said during questioning this afternoon.

"That was the office chatter, yes," Rhona Graff said, noting that she vaguely recalled hearing at the office that Trump had referred to Stormy Daniels as a potentially appealing candidate for the show.

Hoffinger asked if Graff once saw Stormy Daniels in the Trump Tower reception area.

Graff, a former executive assistant for Trump, said she had a vague recollection of seeing Daniels there. Asked if she knew Daniels was an adult film actress, Graff said she did.

The court has taken a brief recess.

After being on the stand for slightly more than 30 minutes, Graff is done testifying.

Trump's lawyer Susan Necheles asked Graff what it was like to work for Trump.

“I never had to do the same day twice in all that time," she said. “It was a very stimulating, exciting — just fascinating place to be."

Asked if Trump was a good boss, Graff said, "I think that he was fair."

Hoffinger is still questioning Graff and has shown her several images of contact pages for McDougal and Daniels in the Trump Organization computer system.

Asked if she had created the contact pages for the two, Graff said, "I believe I did."

Bove miscalculated in trying to get Pecker to agree that McDougal was a celebrity or a brand; this is a person with precise knowledge of who and what sold in the time frame at issue — and McDougal, Playmate of the Year or not, did not meet Enquirer celebrity criteria.

It was also a tactical error to reuse Steinglass’ best phrase of the day: "Enquirer gold."

Graff, a former executive assistant for Trump, said that the Trump Organization is paying for her two attorneys.

Prosecutors just called Graff, Trump's longtime executive assistant, to the stand.

Graff is dressed in black and says she is no longer employed but was a 34-year employee of the Trump Organization, from 1987 to April 2021. She was an executive assistant, a senior executive assistant and eventually became an assistant to the president and an executive VP there.

Pecker has concluded his testimony and left the witness stand.

Bove, returning to McDougal's story, reminded Pecker that he earlier referred to it as "Enquirer gold." Bove then asked Pecker whether McDougal was a "legitimate celebrity" in her own right. Pecker said no.

"There was real value to her brand, correct?" Bove asked. Pecker replied: "I wouldn't say there was value to her brand to a media company."

Pecker is back on the stand and Steinglass is now showing him the FBI notes from an August 2018 interview.

The notes say that in January 2017, Pecker had a meeting with Trump at Trump Tower, during which Trump said, “in sum and substance,” that he wanted to thank Pecker for the McDougal and Sajudin stories.

“Was it the truth then?” Steinglass asks.

“Yes,” Pecker responds.

“Is it the truth now?” Steinglass continues.

“Yes,” Pecker notes.

David Pecker is re-entering the courtroom.

In a post to Truth Social, Trump said he would be willing to debate President Joe Biden as early as tonight.

The invitation from the former president came after Biden said he would debate Trump leading up to the 2024 election during a Friday morning interview with radio show host Howard Stern.

"Crooked Joe Biden just announced that he’s willing to debate! Everyone knows he doesn’t really mean it, but in case he does, I say, ANYWHERE, ANYTIME, ANYPLACE," Trump's post read.

Pecker is expected to return to finish his testimony after the break.

Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass gets Pecker to admit that it was not standard for a presidential candidate’s fixer to suggest amendments to source agreements.

While it was standard for Pecker to suppress stories to help a friend or to use as leverage with a celebrity, he had never done it before primarily to help a campaign.

Pecker confirmed that while he coordinated hundreds of thousands of NDAs during his tenure at AMI, he indicated that "the only one" he did for a presidential candidate's campaign was for Trump.

Pecker, facing questions from one of the prosecutors, confirmed under oath that he bought McDougal's story when he was running the Enquirer as part of a scheme to influence the 2016 presidential election.

Joshua Steinglass, one of the prosecutors, asked Pecker: “Is that true, Mr. Pecker, was that your purpose in locking up the Karen McDougal story, to influence the election?”

Pecker replied yes, then added that the "actual purpose was to acquire lifetime rights so [the story] was not published by any other news organization."

The defense has finished questioning Pecker and now prosecutors have begun redirect.

Bove moved on to Pecker’s testimony that Cohen had told him “Jeff Sessions is the attorney general, and he is in Donald Trump’s pocket.”

Bove asked whether that incident is among those that colored his view that Cohen is prone to exaggeration. Pecker said yes. 

In the cross-examination of Pecker, Bove is trying to argue that paying for stories wasn’t part of the tabloid publisher's agreement with Trump and Cohen when they met at Trump Tower in August 2015.

Bove asked Pecker about the proposed deal to sell the National Enquirer and two other tabloids to the Hudson Group, a travel retailer. Pecker replied that he did not recall the "exact dates" of the proposed transaction.

He then asked whether Pecker told the Manhattan district attorney's office that sale negotiations were taking place when AMI cut a nonprosecution agreement with federal prosecutors in New York.

Bove asked Pecker: "You knew that, to consummate that deal, you had to clear up the investigations?" Pecker replied yes.

The judge is back on the bench and the jury is being brought in.

The court is taking a brief break after Trump's lawyer Bove said he had a few more questions left for cross-examination.

That’s a smart move because if Bove is, indeed, nearing the end, taking a break allows him to have a quick confab with the other defense lawyers to see if he’s left anything out, failed to follow up on anything, etc.

As Bove was questioning Pecker, he broached the subject of Trump's relationship with former FBI Director James Comey, asking, "You know following that [January 2017] meeting there were issues between President Trump and James Comey?"

Immediately, prosecutors objected and Merchan called a sidebar. Meanwhile, Trump whispered with Necheles at the defense table.

Merchan sustained the objection.

Bove and Pecker barely had a chance to resume before another objection and sidebar were called.

Pecker, under cross-examination from Bove, testified that he wanted no part in the Enquirer's story about Daniels, the porn star who claims she had an affair with Trump.

Bove asked Pecker to confirm whether he told then-Enquirer editor-in-chief Dylan Howard that he wanted no involvement in the story about Daniels; Pecker replied, "That's correct."

Bove asked Pecker: "You did not consider Stormy Daniels' story to be a part of any agreement that you had in August of 2015, is that correct?" Pecker testified that it was correct.

Bove is trying to show that AMI got something of value from the McDougal agreement pointing to a number of columns and magazine covers.

Pecker confirmed that he told McDougal that the promotional opportunities she had there were worth hundreds of thousands of dollars and ran 65 stories.

"When AMI signed this agreement, the one that’s on this screen, you believed it had a legitimate business purpose, correct?” Bove asked.

"I did," Pecker said.

The point Bove appears to be driving at is that Pecker and Cohen were especially close — but that Pecker was well aware that Cohen was not well regarded even among his own business associates.

Bove keeps referring to Trump as “President Trump” when he is discussing periods when Trump was not in office.

The DA’s office keeps objecting, and Merchan is sustaining those objections, deflating the defense’s efforts to inflate Trump.

The jurors appear rapt, their eyes moving from Pecker to Bove and back again. Some are taking notes. One chewed the end of a pen, eyes locked on Pecker as he speaks.

Bove just tried — and failed — to establish that Pecker knew about McDougal years prior because she had been one of the first female cover models on Men’s Fitness, shortly after his arrival at AMI in 1999. Pecker explained he didn’t know her and didn't know of her.

Pecker, under cross-examination from Bove, admitted that American Media Inc., the Enquirer's parent company, entered into hundreds of agreements with sources, including before he joined the firm. The tabloid stood to profit handsomely off the stories it purchased, Pecker effectively conceded under oath.

Pecker testified that AMI could have sold "10 million National Enquirers" if the claim that Trump had fathered a child with a Trump Tower maid was true. The publishing executive previously testified that he believed that the story being peddled by former Trump Tower doorman Dino Sajudin was false, though.

Bove referred to negative stories raised by prosecutors that the National Enquirer published about Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Ben Carson in 2016.

“There wasn’t much new content in those stories, was there?” Bove asked.

Pecker responded, “I would have to reread the stories to answer that question."

Bove said that the Enquirer would reuse content published by other news outlets because it was cost-efficient and good for business. Pecker said yes.

Bove, Trump's lawyer, resumed his cross-examination of Pecker with a line of questions about former Trump aide Hope Hicks. Bove is attempting to draw out possible inconsistencies in Pecker's testimony about Hicks' presence at the 2015 meeting at Trump Tower.

Bove established that Hicks once worked for a public relations agency that did work for Star magazine, and that she had been known to Pecker, who was once the publisher of the magazine.

Bove asked Pecker: "You said she was in and out of the [August 2015] meeting, correct?" Pecker conceded that Hicks did not participate in or speaking during that meeting.

Trump is sitting in the courtroom with his eyes shut, leaning back comfortably. There are three Secret Service agents seated behind him in the front row of the gallery.

Pecker, the former publisher of the National Enquirer, will return to the stand for another day of testimony.

He will testify under cross-examination from Trump's lawyer, Emil Bove.

Trump aide Boris Epshteyn is in court for the second day in a row.

He's another legal adviser who is quarterbacking Trump’s various trials and was recently indicted by a state grand jury in Arizona for his alleged role in trying to overturn Joe Biden's win in the state during the 2020 presidential election.

Trump, addressing reporters before entering the courthouse for Day 8 of the trial, insisted that his team had "a very good day yesterday" but once again blasted the case against him as "rigged" and decried the "freezing" temperature inside the courtroom.

The former president also commented on yesterday's Supreme Court oral arguments over his immunity claim in the federal election subversion case. He hailed the arguments as "brilliant" and repeated talking points about the need for "all presidents" to have broad immunity protections.

The judge is on the bench and trial has resumed.

David Pecker, the former publisher of the National Enquirer, will return to the stand for his fourth day of testimony under cross examination by Trump attorney Emil Bove.

Bove is focusing on inconsistencies in Pecker's testimony about whether former Trump aide Hope Hicks was at the 2015 meeting at Trump Tower where suppressing stories was discussed.

Prosecutors objected several times to the line of questioning, prompting bench meetings because prosecutor Joshua Steinglass says Hicks was not mentioned in Pecker's proffer meeting with federal prosecutors. Judge Merchan ended Thursday’s hearing saying: "It's misleading, and we’re going to correct it tomorrow."

Bove said he has a couple hours more on cross, and then we will have redirect.

Voters continue to rank President Joe Biden’s age and former President Donald Trump’s legal woes as the most compelling reasons to oppose them in November, according to new data from the latest national NBC News poll.

Respondents in the recent poll, conducted April 12-16, were asked about three potential vulnerabilities for each candidate ahead of the fall election. 

For Biden, the idea that he “may not have the necessary mental and physical health to be president for a second term” was the most compelling reason for 23% of registered voters. Another 17% of registered voters said their top gripe with Biden was that “millions of immigrants have crossed our border illegally” during his presidency, and 16% chose the message about inflation’s hitting a “40-year high, making it hard for take home pay to match rising prices.” Another 15% said “all of these” were most convincing.

For Trump, 20% of registered voters said the most convincing reason to oppose him was that he’s “facing four different criminal and civil trials for alleged wrongdoing, including multiple felony charges related to attempts to overturn the 2020 election.”

The prosecution’s first witness in its case against Donald Trump will be back on the stand Friday as defense attorneys try to combat the story he has laid out about how the former president was involved in efforts to quash “embarrassing“ stories that could have hurt him during the 2016 campaign.

Former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker's testimony marks the end of the second week of Trump’s hush money trial.

Since he took the stand Monday, Pecker has told jurors that Trump and his then-lawyer Michael Cohen had asked him to be their “eyes and ears” when it came to salacious stories that could undermine Trump’s candidacy.

When cross-examination began Thursday, Trump attorney Emil Bove immediately set out to poke holes in Pecker’s credibility, getting him to acknowledge times he had mixed up dates and that the passage of time could affect his memory.

David Pecker testified about what he knew of the payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels to keep her relationship with Trump quiet. He also discussed an agreement the National Enquirer made with former Playboy model Karen McDougal. NBC News’ Vaughn Hillyard reports.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said in an interview Thursday with NBC News’ “Meet the Press” that he doesn’t think presidents should be immune from criminal prosecution for actions taken while in office, as the Supreme Court heard arguments on the issue.

The Kentucky Republican also told “Meet the Press” moderator Kristen Welker that he stands by his acquittal vote and comments he made in 2021, when he voted against convicting former President Donald Trump in a Senate trial after he was impeached by the House on charges related to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

“President Trump is still liable for everything he did while he was in office. ... He didn’t get away with anything, yet,” McConnell said in 2021, adding, “we have a criminal justice system in this country. We have civil litigation. And former presidents are not immune from being [held] accountable by either one.”

WASHINGTON — Former President Donald Trump has long argued for absolute immunity in his federal election interference case, but his lawyer struck a different tone Thursday during arguments at the Supreme Court.

With the justices appeared largely skeptical of the argument that the entire indictment against Trump should be dismissed, attorney D. John Sauer made some concessions.

Sauer appeared to agree with special counsel Jack Smith, who is leading the prosecution, that there are some allegations in the indictment that do not involve “official acts” of the president.

Sauer’s main argument was that the entire indictment is premised on official acts, which should be protected by immunity in part to ensure that presidents’ hands are not tied over fear of prosecution after they leave office.

The former president has left Trump Tower and is en route to the courthouse.

Taking the stand Thursday for now the third day this week, former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker provided testimony to form a road map for New York prosecutors’ case against former President Donald Trump.

From detailing business invoice practices to establishing how deeply Trump was involved from beginning to end, lawyers for the Manhattan district attorney’s office had Pecker walk the jury through much of the events that occurred leading up to and after the payments to Stormy Daniels to keep quiet about an affair she alleges she had with Trump.

Sprinkled in the testimony were juicy celebrity gossip tidbits and revelations about Trump’s repeated inquiries about a Playboy model who also claimed to have had an affair with him.

And after hours of dishing new details, the defense tried Thursday to paint Pecker as suffering from memory lapses and operating for his own motives.

Read the full story here

A gag order hearing previously set for next Wednesday has been moved to Thursday, according to a source with direct knowledge of the matter.

Judge Juan Merchan heard arguments Tuesday about whether Trump willfully violated a gag order in the case. During that hearing, prosecutors asked for the judge to impose a $1,000 fine for each post that they said violated the order.

Prosecutors are also seeking an order for Trump to take down those social media posts, along with a warning that any future violations could risk jail time. Trump's attorneys argue he has not violated the order.

During a campaign fundraising event last night, Biden told the crowd of supporters that he has not had a chance to follow Trump's court proceedings in the hush money case.

"I've been out campaigning," Biden said.

Biden has said little about Trump's trial since it got underway last week.

In an interview last night, Trump told Newsmax that he would take the stand in his hush money trial "if it's necessary."

The former president said on April 12 that he "would testify, absolutely," and last week he responded "yes" when asked if he would take the stand.

Trump is not required to testify during the trial.

Former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker, the first witness for the prosecution, is expected to return to the stand for cross-examination.

Trump's defense team yesterday tried to cast doubt on Pecker's memory of the hush money payments he had described in earlier testimony.

“There are some gaps, correct? Because it was a long time ago?” Trump lawyer Emil Bove asked Pecker. "Yes," Pecker replied.

It's unclear if Pecker's testimony will conclude today or if there will be another witness.

Former publisher of the National Enquirer David Pecker returned to the witness stand yesterday and talked about his role in hush money payments to an adult film star and a Playboy model.

Pecker also testified about communicating with then-Trump lawyer Michael Cohen about the arrangement for the payments, as well as his concern about the possible legal ramifications of making payments related to a major presidential candidate in the 2016 campaign.

Pecker, 72, was cross-examined by Trump's defense, who tried to cast doubt on his memory of events from that period.