The defense will continue the cross-examination of tabloid publisher David Pecker as the historic trial of the former US president continues.
Testimony in the New York trial of former US President Donald Trump in connection with hush money payments to an adult film star is scheduled to begin on the fourth day.
Trump’s lawyers on Friday will continue to question former tabloid publisher David Pecker, who spent three days detailing how he struck a deal with Trump to “catch and kill” negative stories surrounding the ex-president’s white-collar campaign House 2016 to support.
U.S. prosecutors have spent days trying to establish a broader pattern of Trump’s efforts to illegally influence this year’s election.
Trump was charged with 34 counts of falsifying business documents related to payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels.
The allegations relate to the alleged mislabeling of repayments made by Trump to his lawyer Michael Cohen, who paid Daniels $130,000 in exchange for her silence about an alleged sexual encounter with Trump. The former president has denied that the affair took place.
For a felony charge to stick, prosecutors must convince jurors that the misrepresentations were made with the intent to commit or cover up another crime. They have focused primarily on what they simply call “voter fraud.”
Trump’s defense team has argued that he did nothing illegal to justify the felony charges.
In the first part of Thursday’s cross-examination, Trump’s lawyer tried to portray agreements to “catch and kill” negative stories about celebrities as “standard operating procedure.”
Pecker said similar agreements were reached with Rahm Emanuel, chief of staff to former President Barack Obama, and Arnold Schwarzenegger, the former governor of California.
Previously, prosecutors had focused on how Pecker agreed to be the “eyes and ears” of the Trump campaign.
During questioning, Pecker said Trump never expressed concerns about his family when discussing efforts to suppress claims of an alleged affair by model Karen McDougal and Daniels.
This appeared aimed at undermining a central aspect of Trump’s defense: that he wanted to prevent personally damaging allegations from becoming public but was not trying to influence the election.
Prosecutors were also awaiting a decision from Judge Juan Merchan on whether Trump violated a partial gag order in the case that prevents him from speaking publicly about people involved in the trial.
On Tuesday they presented 10 such alleged violations, and prosecutors said Thursday that Trump has committed four more since then.
They demanded Trump be reprimanded for the violations.