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Now: Ex-Tabloid Publisher Testifying In Trump Trial; Ex-Tabloid Publisher Confirms He Signed Cooperation Agreement With Manhattan DA's Office In 2019. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired April 25, 2024 - 15:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

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[15:01:27]

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: Welcome back to our special coverage of the first ever criminal trial of a former president of the United States. I'm Wolf Blitzer in the nation's capital. Erin Burnett is outside Donald Trump's hush money trial in New York.

Today, the former president's legal cases, they are colliding. He's in Manhattan in a Manhattan courtroom, and some of his lawyers were here in Washington trying to convince the United States Supreme Court that he should be shielded from federal charges.

But Erin, Trump didn't hear those historic arguments at the Supreme Court.

ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST, "OUTFRONT": Yes, no, Wolf, he didn't because he was in that courtroom, as you said, here in Manhattan behind me. He heard more testimony from his one-time friend, David Pecker. The former tabloid executive has been questioned now for more than five hours, all in and throughout today. He is still on the stand. And a key moment just played out as Pecker recalled a conversation that he had with Trump's former attorney and fixer Michael Cohen.

This conversation happened after Cohen had received a letter from the Federal Election Commission. And Pecker tells Cohen, "We committed a campaign violation." Cohen's response, according to Pecker, he said he wasn't worried because, "Jeff Sessions is the attorney general and Donald Trump has him in his pocket."

All right. Kara Scannell and Phil Mattingly are with me.

All right, Phil. I mean, that's in black and white from both of them. We committed a campaign violation.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CHIEF DOMESTIC CORRESPONDENT & ANCHOR: Right and this was in ...

BURNETT: And then the response.

MATTINGLY: The response, which is jarring to read. I think the one caveat you have here is that this is Michael Cohen. And perhaps he was being - he was blustering or being boisterous. BURNETT: Right.

MATTINGLY: There's no question that the former president thought many of the cabinet officials were at his explicit direction.

BURNETT: Yes.

MATTINGLY: But the context of the start of this conversation where this came out was the prosecution walking Pecker through the non- prosecution agreement that AMI reached with the Justice Department has a lot of facts inside it, within it. But it's also, I believe, as Judge Merchan framed it, is this is how you're able to - this should help you assess the credibility of the witness that you've been listening to over the course of the last several days. And I think the prosecution wants that credibility to be very well understood.

But I think when we were talking about during the commercial break, you see the comment from Michael Cohen that don't worry about that thing from the FEC because the justice - the attorney general is in the current president - now former president's pocket. But also, there's another conversation that was read out just a little while earlier, which was that there had been a conversation, a phone call that Pecker was on with Sarah Huckabee Sanders, then a White House official and Hope Hicks, close advisor to the former president, then a White House official, about extending the agreement that AMI had reached with Karen McDougal.

So when you talk about whether or not that has an impact on the case itself, but again, getting a window into not just Trump's pre-White House operation, but now in the White House, having actual White House staff on the phone talking about this agreement and extending it and recommending that it be extended again, paints a fuller picture of not just the former president as an individual or the former president before he took office, but who knew in the White House and how important they thought it was to keep this going.

BURNETT: And Kara, what do you make of what we're seeing right now? Pecker right now on the statement, they're having him read the - this - the agreement, read the statement of facts line by line.

KARA SCANNELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Right. And this is the non- prosecution agreement that AMI reached with the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York ...

BURNETT: Right.

SCANNELL: ... when they were investigating Michael Cohen, which ultimately led to Michael Cohen's guilty plea of campaign finance violations.

[15:05:01]

And this statement of facts, that's part of the deal, is literally what David Pecker has been testifying to this meeting at Trump Tower in August 2015, when this alleged conspiracy was reached between Donald Trump, Michael Cohen and David Pecker. BURNETT: Yes.

SCANNELL: And then going through the Karen McDougal deal in great detail. So the prosecutor is having David Pecker go through and identify that as Karen McDougal. That's a reference to this person. So all to back up, because this is a legal document, all to back up the testimony that Pecker has just given.

MATTINGLY: Right, and also saying at one point where the statement of facts refers to a presidential candidate running for election in the United States of America. He said, I know this is a silly question, but who are you referring to or who does that refer to, and Pecker had to point to Donald Trump.

BURNETT: Right. And interesting, I think also, what do you make, Kara, having been in the room so much at the lawyers having to choose this to be Pecker to actually have to read it aloud to the jury. And now we're seeing the description, Trump sitting back in his chair, his arms folded across his chest. He appears to be reading the non- prosecution agreement on the screen in front of him.

SCANNELL: Yes. I mean, this is the thing. When there's evidence that's introduced, it goes up on these monitors and every juror has the monitor right in front of them. And Donald Trump has one in front of him. And so they can all follow along.

But they're having - when prosecutors do this, they're underscoring. They could just put up the document and tell the jury they can read it later. It's now entered into evidence.

BURNETT: Right, this is the exclamation point strategy.

SCANNELL: Yes, yes, they are underscoring each element of this to say that what you just heard from David Pecker is backed up by this document. And so they want to really just use it to try to bolster his credibility with the jury. And the judge gave an instruction on this, too, saying to the jury, you can't infer Donald Trump's guilty because David Pecker agreed to sign a non-prosecution agreement.

BURNETT: Right.

SCANNELL: They're not supposed to use it that way. But it certainly is making it quite clear that David Pecker admitted that he committed a crime here. He just didn't get prosecuted for it because he cooperated.

BURNETT: Yes. And obviously you've been in the room so much. But Phil, you were spending so much time covering the former President and seeing him. The description here, sitting back in a chair with his arms folded across his chest. That particular motion - expression, I mean, I know we're supposed to read all kinds of things into body language. But even for him, there are certain moments where he actually does the arms cross.

MATTINGLY: Yes. The one that comes to mind is I believe - it was either a G7 or a NATO meeting where he's surrounded by foreign leaders. And it became like this famous picture with Angela Merkel like leaning over the table. And it looked like he was kind of being barraged by foreign leaders who disagreed with his policy or his positions on these things and it was very much like the - I think his team framed it as this is America first. This is him standing up against European allies.

But it became kind of a famous pose and posture. I think you've seen many pictures of it. He gets described as that as well. I continue to go back, though, as he's doing this right now, the lack of reaction that we've seen throughout. Like this is about as a motive as he has gotten based on our - and you've been in the courtroom - based on our team that's been watching him save for passing some notes, whispering to his lawyer every once in a while.

We'll see what he says afterwards. His team has made clear he's going to be speaking after court. He's been doing that regularly. He's definitely going to do that today. But keeping things very much controlled and contained.

BURNETT: Right. And we'll see when he speaks, does the prosecution come in, alleged more gag order violations as they did again this morning. They got four through, still waiting on the original ruling of what was it, 10 or 11 of them.

All right. Kara and Phil, we're all here. Wolf, down to you.

BLITZER: All right. Erin, thanks very much. And we're just getting word that Pecker is confirming now in the course of this trial that he signed what was called a cooperation agreement with the Manhattan District Attorney's Office back in October of 2019.

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Right.

BLITZER: And that he's testifying about that. What do you make of it?

HONIG: Yes. So first of all, this signals to me that prosecutors are about wrapping up their direct examination with David Pecker. This is the kind of thing you would do at the end to show the jury what is the deal that you are here under.

Now, the history of David Pecker is important. The Southern District of New York, federal prosecutors, my old office, started meeting with David Pecker when they were investigating Michael Cohen. They ended up prosecuting Michael Cohen.

They made a decision to give David Pecker what we call a non- prosecution agreement, which is mostly what it sounds like. You will testify. We will not prosecute you. But it says in there that you, David Pecker and AMI were involved in federal campaign finance crimes. Now, what happened after that is the state took it over. The DA's office. And the DA's office entered into essentially similar cooperation agreement.

So the way the parties are going to argue this is this, the DA is going to say, look, folks, he's laying it all out on the line. He's told you everything he's got. Nothing to hide. His incentive right now is to tell the full truth. Otherwise, he's going to lose this agreement with us.

The defense, Trump's team, is going to say, no, no, no. He's in their pocket. All he wants to do is please them because they're the ones who gave him a sweetheart deal up to the jury, ultimately.

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: And do we know how juries usually assess these kinds of non-prosecution agreements?

HONIG: So I'm interested to hear what Elliot thinks. But in my experience, non-prosecution and cooperation agreements usually are held up by juries. Usually juries understand the deal. They get it. And what they're always looking for is corroboration.

[15:10:02]

They're never going to - rarely are they going to credit David Pecker or Michael Cohen just for their word. They're going to say, well, how does that testimony fit in with the documents and the other testimony.

ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yes, I mean, I've prosecuted gang members and someone who have really ugly convictions in their past. And frankly, if you have enough of them saying the same thing, eventually the jury starts to believe what they're saying, but it doesn't help.

Now, what the prosecution is doing is making sure to be the first ones to point all this information out so that the defense doesn't do it, because the defense can weaponize it if they bring out for the first time that someone has a prosecution - a cooperation agreement or a non-prosecution agreement.

BLITZER: Yes, they want to come clean ...

WILLIAMS: Come clean.

BLITZER: ... and especially as this testimony from Pecker seems to be winding down, at least right now.

Pecker also testified, this may be significant, I'm anxious, Elliot, to get your thoughts, that Trump actually invited him to what was described as a thank you dinner at the - in the White House back in 2017. Is that significant for the prosecution's case?

WILLIAMS: Yes and no, and that it establishes an ongoing relationship with them. The problem is they could be thanking him for being a friend, could be thanking him for suppressing information from Donald Trump's wife and children, which would not be a crime. It could help, and it's more evidence that it helps bolster the rest of their case. But it's certainly not - Donald Trump's not going to be convicted on the basis of that one fact.

And what does it say to you, and I'm anxious, Elie, to get your thoughts as well, that the National Enquirer was publishing nice things about Trump, but going after Trump's rivals for the Republican nomination back in 2016 like Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and others. WILLIAMS: It gives a sense of the scope of the catch-and-kill concept that sort of how much they were in the tank for the former president. And again, a big part - there's - it's almost like there's two parts to the - or a few parts of the case. One is the relationships this - the salacious stuff that we know about, but also the nuts and bolts of how did the financial transactions go down.

You need both in order to be able to get in the jury's heads and I think that's what they're doing.

GLORIA BORGER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: At this dinner, which is so interesting, the kind of a thank you dinner, Pecker's also reporting that at the end of it, the president privately asked him how Karen was doing.

BLITZER: Karen McDougal.

BORGER: Karen - yes, referring to Karen McDougal. And Pecker said, she's quiet. Things are fine. But this just gives you a window into the president's thinking. He's in the White House. The Karen McDougal story has already been out there. And he's inviting Pecker to say thank you for being my friend and still is asking about Karen McDougal.

HONIG: And I like that as a prosecutor ...

BORGER: Yes.

HONIG: ... because these details matter. The jury's going to remember, I'll give you two examples. One, the jury now knows that David Pecker was there in Trump Tower the day Donald Trump announced his candidacy. They're going to remember that. And now they know that he gets invited to the White House.

And if you're a prosecutor you say, the reason David Pecker was helping Donald Trump out was political, campaign-related. Well, you think about the campaign announcement, the White House, these specifics tend to stick in jurors' minds.

BLITZER: Audie, what do you think?

AUDIE CORNISH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I think it's interesting that it's - we're trying to view this all through the lens of now, when back then that might have actually been a scandal of some kind. Like we're coming at this after, you know, almost a decade of like so many Trump scandals, so many things that seem like this is the craziest thing that could ever happen.

And at that time, they're trying to show there was incentive to suppress information that they thought could sway voters, because even the Access Hollywood tape at that time was a big news story, right? It was a big moment where people asked the question, would voters still support this kind of person, et cetera.

And so we're kind of asking everyone to step back and remember what it was like to think something could shock you about Donald Trump Jr. CHALIAN: And Pecker said on the stand today, going back to that period after the election, president-elect in Trump Tower, James Comey in the meeting, whatever, they all leave. But in that conversation, Pecker says his impression was that in every conversation with Michael Cohen and in every interaction about this, nobody said this was out of concern of the family, that he interpreted - he understood the concern to be of the campaign. When the president-elect at the time sort of thanking him, he believed that was thanking him for helping him in the campaign.

WILLIAMS: Audie, to you point, we are discussing allegations, unproven thus far, that a former president essentially silenced porn stars on account of personal intimate affairs to keep them from voters and that is not the biggest legal story of the day involving that person. That it is just important to step back and realize how remarkable this all is that even the case that is regarded as the least serious one confronting the former president is very serious conduct that in any other universe in any other world that rational world - I don't know.

BLITZER: It's so embarrassing.

WILLIAMS: It is embarrassing to the United States ...

CORNISH: Yes. We haven't used that word in a while, embarrassment, shame ...

WILLIAMS: And I think we should but because we're a post ...

CORNISH: (INAUDIBLE), yes.

[15:15:04]

WILLIAMS: I'm sorry, Audie, but it's a post-shame society where this is the kind of conduct ...

BORGER: Well, it's baked into the whole ethos of Donald Trump, right? I mean ...

CHALIAN: Well, yes. And to Audie's point a sex scandal is actually - if you can rewind your brain like a traditional ...

BORGER: Right.

CORNISH: Yes.

CHALIAN: ... political campaign scandal ...

CORNISH: Was disqualifying, yes.

CHALIAN: ... you could have imagined in 2016 that we'd be at the Supreme Court about total immunity for the presidency related to attempting to overthrow a legitimate election and ransack the Capitol and prevent the Electoral College votes from being counted. Like that wasn't in the imagination at the time.

CORNISH: Right. BORGER: Not in the (INAUDIBLE), yes.

CHALIAN: A traditional old sex scandal that could harm your campaign, that was the world in which we were living in.

BLITZER: A lot of this was never in our imagination as we're beginning to understand what exactly was going on.

Everybody standby. We're continuing to follow all the breaking news out of the hush money trial of the former President Donald Trump. The former tabloid executive David Pecker is on the stand right now. We'll update you with the latest when we come back.

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[15:20:25]

BURNETT: All right. We continue our breaking news coverage of Donald Trump's criminal hush money trial. The former publisher for the National Enquirer, David Pecker, is testifying right now. Moments ago the cooperation agreement that Pecker signed with the Manhattan DA was shown on a screen in court and Pecker read it, actually the prosecutors, I think, read it aloud. They wanted the jury not just to see it and sort of check the box but to hear it.

And one of the jurors, we understand from our team inside the room, who is an attorney, works as an attorney, made a visible facial expression at the agreement as he looked at it. We're also told jurors have been taking notes today and are paying attention.

I want to bring in jury consultants, Jason Bloom and Leslie Ellis. And thanks to both of you.

Jason, let me start with you. You've got an attorney on this panel, so somebody who, you know, knows what they're looking at, even reading this, right? And then on top of it, you have the prosecution having David Pecker read this agreement aloud. What do you make of the juror, who is an attorney, reaction to that?

JASON BLOOM, JURY CONSULTANT: Maybe the juror who's an attorney is questioning some parts of that and that's why you're getting that sort of reaction from him. It's very interesting, though, and I think Leslie would agree that we've got at least two jurors on this particular jury panel as well.

BURNETT: Leslie, when you also hear the context here that the jury is paying very close attention and taking notes, I remember at the very beginning we were told more than half of them had raised their hand when they were offered the ability to take notes. I don't know now if it's all of them or not. We'll see if we get some more color from the room to understand that. But what do you take away from that? They're days into this now. They're hours into a long day today, and that they are sitting there avidly paying attention and taking notes.

LESLIE ELLIS, JURY CONSULTANT: Sure. I think there are a lot of reasons for why the jurors are being pretty avidly paying attention. When they take notes, it can mean a couple of different things. It can mean something is very important to them. What we also don't know is sometimes jurors are just scribbling things down. They're doodling. They're using it to help focus, to help stay awake, even though it is pretty engaging testimony. These are long days, and it can be very uncomfortable to sit there for hours on end.

So taking notes can be a strong indicator of engagement, but it can also mean other things. So I always caution clients not to take too much away from it and don't focus too much on trying to read the tea leaves.

BURNETT: All right. Two significant developments here as we're speaking. Jason, the prosecution has concluded. That means that Pecker is done from direct. They're going to move to cross-examination. They could start that. We'll see - and see how far they get over this next hour or so. The court is slated to be in session.

But what do you make of what the prosecution did with Pecker? They have now formally concluded his direct examination.

BLOOM: Yes, what I would want to note is whether or not they used Pecker to connect the dots towards a crime. Certainly a lot of information has come out about what the former president has done in terms of paying money, the role of the national inquirer. But did the prosecution actually connect the dots to the elements of a crime.

Is this a crime is probably what some of the jurors are wondering. Some may be even asking themselves, where's the beef? How does this rise to the level of a crime? But the most telling part is going to be the cross-examination of this witness. It's more of a stress test for not only his truthfulness, but also his bias.

BURNETT: And, Leslie, that cross-examination is set to begin, and I'll just keep you posted as it starts. But, yes, it is beginning. Trump's attorney, Emil Bove, is taking the podium to begin the cross- examination of David Pecker.

So, from the perspective of the jury, they've been hearing now over several days, broken up, and I think that's important to emphasize, broken up, the direct examination of Pecker. Now you have the cross- examination starting. They're not going to sleep on it. It's not going to start tomorrow morning. It's starting right now. What do you think about that from what it means for the jury?

ELLIS: Well, they will definitely have overnight before they hear the completion of the cross-examination. I'd be surprised if they finished it today. So, they'll have a lot of time to think about it if they choose to think about it. One of the things that jurors do look pretty closely at when it comes to direct versus cross-examination is the demeanor of the witness.

[15:25:05]

And day-to-day, how does that demeanor change or not. So, jurors focus quite a lot on the content of what witnesses say, but they also focus on the demeanor. And how (INAUDIBLE) that change from direct to cross, day-to-day, morning to afternoon, depending on the content, and if they can draw any connections between how a witness is acting and the subject of what it is they're testifying about at that moment.

BURNETT: All right. Jason, Leslie, thank you both very much.

And much more of our special live coverage continues here, as David Pecker is now under cross-examination by the defense team, as of just a moment ago, here in Manhattan.

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