WHAT HAS BEEN CALLED the Trump “hush money case” by anti-Trump factions, and “business record case” by MAGA Republicans has been proceeding apace in lower Manhattan this week. By Friday, opening arguments (Matthew Colangelo for the prosecution; Todd Blanche for the defense) and three prosecution witnesses were heard by the jury. Additionally, Judge Juan Merchan heard motions and other matters outside the jury’s presence. Audio/video from the trial is not available publicly. Nor is photography allowed—only artist renditions in the courtroom. It’s likely the norm for state courtrooms throughout the nation today, though hard to see why especially in this case. After all, we do have the technology…
The first witness (for most of the week) was a man named David Pecker, a former magazine executive. The second was Trump’s longtime assistant, Rhona Graff, and the third, a banker named Gary Farro. You’d almost think they were defense witnesses, depending on whose reporting on the testimony you care to believe.
Pecker, a friend of Trump’s, was the publisher of the tabloid, the National Enquirer and C.E.O. of American Media, Inc. He testified about “checkbook journalism,” the practice of paying for stories. He was asked extensively about something called “catch-and-kill,” which is a publishing practice of paying for stories with the intention of ‘spiking’ rather than printing them. It was—and is—in widespread use and is perfectly legal. It is a way of enforcing an agreement with a publisher to keep quiet (dare I day ‘hush’?) in the future by providing the consideration to the source, necessary to form a contract.
Pecker provided examples of two people his companies did this with: Dino Sajudin, once a doorman at Trump Tower, who claimed Trump sired a child with a woman out of wedlock; and Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model, who claimed she had an affair with Trump. (Trump denies both stories.) Pecker testified the deals were to protect his friend, as were the publication of negative stories about then-Trump G.O.P. presidential rivals, Ted Cruz and Ben Carson.
While this testimony doesn’t absolve Trump of anything, it also doesn’t show him guilty of anything other than being the recipient of the good and legal graces of his friend. Nonetheless, his counsel implied that Pecker’s testimony could be tainted because his company, AmericanMedia, entered into a non-prosecution agreement (sort of an N.D.A. variant meant to keep prosecutors honest) with the Justice Department in 2018. Trump’s team wanted to show Pecker really just wanted to sell magazines, rather than influence the outcome of the election.
As for Sajudin, he was paid $30,000 facilitated by Pecker and Cohen’s efforts, to sell his information about Trump’s supposed love child contained in his book, “Trump Doorman,” which was apparently published in 2021. He claims he had been forced to resign by Trump, and marketed his story as a result. He had signed a contract with AMI putting $1 million at stake if he violated his N.D.A., but it was ultimately lifted in 2018 after The New York Post wrote about the story. For her part, Graff clearly didn’t want to be in court and her testimony added little, though she admitted to having a “vague recollection” of seeing Daniels in Trump Tower before the 2016 election, but that it might have had to do with a possibly appearing on “Celebrity Apprentice,” a TV show Trump starred in at the time. The Trump Organization, she admitted, was paying for her two attorneys in the case.
Trump faces 34 felony counts (and possibly four years in prison if convicted) for allegedly falsifying business records about a non-disclosure agreement he entered into with adult actress Stormy Daniels in exchange for $130,000 in the final weeks of the 2016 presidential election. The monetary exchange reportedly went through Trump’s then-attorney and fixer Michael Cohen who in 2018 was found guilty of, and served three years for, lying to Congress about it.
Where’s the crime? Good question. Prosecutors claim, with little or no evidence, that the manner of accounting for Cohen’s payment to Daniels was intended to conceal the real reason for the exchange. Again, where’s the crime? Again, another good question. No one really knows. No one really believes there will be any bombshell testimony, either, but we’ll have to wait and see. Trials can start off slow only to reach a crescendo later on. It’s just hard to envision in this trial.
As best as can be understood, prosecutors claim the payments were election fraud: concealed to effectuate Trump’s ascendency to the White House rather than to merely spare him personal embarrassment, thereby violating federal election finance laws. (Never mind this didn’t involve campaign contributions.) But this prosecution needs a state crime. Where is it? Somehow, the alleged federal fraud got bootstrapped to a New York State business records law, which would ordinarily only give rise to a misdemeanor unless connected to another crime. But the statute of limitations ran on that, so…? Well, it’s bootstrapped to the federal felony case that apparently isn’t time-barred and can be used to make the business records ‘violation’ a felony somehow. And never mind the feds flatly refused to prosecute the supposed federal case! It’s not only a novel legal theory, it’s a completely absurd, frivolous, and malicious prosecution persecution. Not that Judge Merchan would realize it: he is clearly well out of his league, which includes the monitoring of the treatment of the City’s mentally ill who hope their voluntary participation will get their offenses dismissed or reduced.
Also absurd is the surely unconstitutional gag order the judge placed on President Trump. It was alleged he violated it another seven times. A hearing on the matter is set for May 1st. Also absurd is his ruling allowing the D.A.’s office to withhold the names of witnesses it will call until immediately beforehand, ostensibly because they fear he will talk about it publicly.
Thus went the first week of the first criminal trial of a president not in office. For his part, Trump denies any illegality in his payments to Cohen, any sexual involvement with Daniels, or any business records errors giving rise any crime. The trial continues on Tuesday. Trump will again be relegated to watching from the defense table, unable to leave for any reason or talk to the press. New York and its D.A., Alvin Bragg, should be embarrassed—and sanctioned.
sua sponte 