for the first time in Donald Trump‘S stash testjurors heard former PresidentThe sound of a former lawyer discussing a deal with his former lawyer to buy his silence Slacker Model who alleged affair with Mr Trump.
Part of a recording – recorded secretly Michael Cohen When Mr. Trump was in the midst of his 2016 campaign for the presidency – played inside a manhattan courtroom On Thursday, the jury was given a brief but important insight into how his “fixer” kept his boss updated with a plan which is now at the center of criminal case Against him.
In the recording, Cohen can be heard saying, “I need to open a company to transfer all the information about our friend David, so that – I’m going to do that immediately.”
“And I’ve talked to Allen Weisselberg about how to organize the whole thing,” Cohen says, referencing the now-indicted former chief financial officer for the Trump Organization.
“So, what do we have to pay for it?” Mr Trump can be heard saying. “150?”
That “David” appears to be the earlier David Pecker. National Enquirer Publisher.
In testimony at his trialMr. Pecker signed an agreement with Cohen and Mr. Trump in August 2015 to purchase the rights to politically compromising stories about Mr. Trump’s affairs—with no intention of publishing them, a practice described as ” Known as “catch and kill”.
Two months before Election Day, under Cohen’s direction, Mr. Pecker arranged a payment of $150,000. Karen McDougallThe former model who is alleged to have had a 10-month-long affair with Mr Trump a decade ago.
He told the court that Mr Pekar was never reimbursed.
In his testimony last weekHe reported that he entered into the contract to buy the rights to his allegations in order to boost Mr. Trump’s chances of winning the 2016 election.
In the recording, Mr Trump can be heard saying: “Okay, I’ve got to pay something.”
He suggests paying in “cash”.
Cohen objects and repeatedly says “no.”
Mr. Trump then says “check.”
In court, Mr. Trump leaned over the small screen in front of him at the defense table and whispered to his defense lawyer, Todd Blanche, while reading a transcript of the recording with a squint.
According to the testimony of Mr. Pecker and Cohen’s former banker, Cohen immediately arranged for an LLC – Resolution Consultants LLC – to send the money to Mr. Pecker for his payment to Ms. McDougall.
But he never did any transaction. The LLC was never funded. And Mr. Pekar said in his testimony that he canceled the deal after talking to his lawyers.
The recording was presented as evidence during testimony by a forensic analyst, who extracted data from Cohen’s phone, including call logs, text messages, and thousands of contacts.
The recording did not include discussion of a so-called “hush money” scheme to buy the silence of an adult film star. stormy danielsWho was accused of having a sexual relationship with Mr Trump in 2006.
Mr Trump has been charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records to conceal his reimbursements to Cohen for allegedly transferring $130,000 to Ms Daniels’ lawyer just a week before Election Day in 2016. Another shell company was established for this.
Two weeks after leaving the shell company he set up for Ms. McDougall, Cohen asked his banker to open another account, according to emails shown to the court.
That account, Essential Consultants LLC, was used to pay $130,000 to Ms. Daniels at the center of the president’s criminal case.
The paperwork to form the LLC states that it will be used “to collect fees for investment consulting for real estate transactions.”