Donald Trump’s criminal trial in Manhattan will be on hiatus Wednesday as Judge Juan Merchan takes the day to work on other cases—which is probably just as well, as it gives the public a chance to digest some of the most explosive claims made so far in the first trial ever of a former U.S. president.
After just two days of testimony, prosecutors have already asked the judge to hold Trump in contempt for violating a gag order with a series of social media posts. While the judge has held off on ruling so far, he tore into Trump’s lead lawyer Tuesday in a scene that may spell trouble for the former president’s defense, telling attorney Todd Blanche: “Mr Blanche, you’re losing all credibility, I have to tell you right now.”
When the trial resumes Thursday, we’ll be getting more from David Pecker, the former publisher of the National Enquirer. Pecker, the CEO of American Media Inc. during the 2016 presidential election, was grilled for around two-and-a-half hours on Tuesday about how he offered to act as Trump’s “eyes and ears” during the Republican’s campaign, using his tabloids to buy the exclusive rights to potentially damaging stories about Trump in an effort to make sure they never saw the light of day—a practice known as “catch and kill.”
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The scheme was the product of what prosecutors called the “Trump Tower conspiracy,” in which Pecker, Trump, and Trump’s then-lawyer Michael Cohen met to discuss how they could suppress embarrassing stories about Trump. “In a presidential campaign I was the person that thought that a lot of women would come out to sell their stories,” Pecker testified.
He also spoke about some of the negative stories he’d torpedoed with catch and kill deals. Pecker said he’d made one with Trump’s doorman, who was claiming at the time that Trump had fathered a child out of wedlock. Pecker testified that when he informed Cohen that he’d agreed to buy the story, Cohen said “the boss would be very pleased,” referring to Trump.
Pecker’s testimony also ended with him discussing his conversations with Cohen about Karen McDougal, a Playboy Playmate who he learned was trying to sell a story about an alleged affair she’d had with Trump in 2006. Trump has denied the affair took place.
What we have yet to hear about, however, is a third alleged catch-and-kill scheme at the center of the case: the $130,000 hush-money payment Cohen made to Stormy Daniels in 2016 to cover up her claims of a one-night stand with Trump. Trump, who has denied any sexual tryst took place, is accused of reimbursing Cohen for the hush-money payments by falsely recording the reimbursements as legal expenses. Trump has pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business records.
One person in particular is said to be watching closely as the trial moves on to the Stormy Daniels saga: Melania Trump. Stephanie Grisham, the former first lady’s ex-press secretary, told CNN on Tuesday that Melania is no doubt “watching every ounce of coverage and when that [information about Pecker’s private email] came out, it piqued her interest.”
“Melania is very much about proof, show proof. And so if some more damaging stuff should come out that she didn’t know about because of course her husband continues to deny all of the details here, about Stormy especially, … if some other stuff comes out, I think that’ll be really interesting to watch,” Grisham said.
Details of the Stormy Daniels deal could be presented Thursday—the same day that another momentous moment will arrive in Trump’s legal battles. At 10 a.m. on Thursday morning, oral arguments are scheduled to begin before the United States Supreme Court about the former president’s claim of absolute immunity from prosecution on federal charges alleging that he plotted to overturn the result of the 2020 presidential election.
The eventual ruling is unlikely to impact the New York case. But the justices’ decision—and how long they take to make it—will in turn play a major role in whether or not Trump will go on trial in that case before the presidential election in November in which he is, once again, the presumptive Republican nominee.
