The jury heard a readback of David Pecker's testimony about Donald Trump dating the "most beautiful women," the National Enquirer's coverage of Bill Clinton's "womanizing," and the "mutually beneficial" relationship between the tabloid and the Trump campaign.
Q: Can you explain to the jury how the topic of women in particular came up?
A: Well, in a presidential campaign I was the person that thought that there would be a number -- a lot of women come out to try to sell their stories, because Mr. Trump was well-known as the most eligible bachelor and dated the most beautiful women. And it was clear that based on my past experience, that when someone is running for a public office like this, the -- it is very common for these women to call up a magazine like the National Enquirer to try to sell their stories. Or I would hear it in the marketplace through other sources that stories are being marketed.
Q: Did you have or express any ideas about how you may be able to help kind of deal with those stories by women?
A: All I said was I would notify Michael Cohen.
Q: What about Bill and Hillary Clinton, did their names up during this meeting?
A: Yes.
Q: Can you explain how?
A: As I mentioned earlier, my having the National Enquirer, which is a weekly magazine, and you focus on the cover of the magazine and who -- and who and what is the story that is the topic of the week, the Hillary running for president and Bill Clinton's womanizing was the biggest, one of the biggest sales I had for the National Enquirer and the other tabloids, that's the other things that the readers wanted to read about and that's what I would sell weekly. So I was running the Hillary Clinton stories. I was running Hillary as an enabler for Bill Clinton, with respect to all of the womanizing. And I was -- it was easy for me to say that I'm going to continue running those type of stories for the National Enquirer.
Q: And did you believe that that would help Mr. Trump's campaign?
A: I think it was a mutual benefit. It would help his campaign; it would also help me.
The jury also heard the testimony where Pecker testified that he never purchased stories to kill for Trump prior to the 2016 election.
Q: And what was the purpose of notifying Michael Cohen when you came upon stories like that?
A: Well, as I did in the past, that would be in the past eight years, when I notified Michael Cohen of a story that was a negative story, he would try to vet it himself to see if the story was true or not. He would go to the individual publication to get the story to make sure the story wasn't published and getting killed.
Q: Prior to that August 2015 meeting, had you ever purchased a story to not print it about Mr. Trump?
A: No.
