Judge Juan Merchan, left, listens as David Pecker testifies on the witness stand in Manhattan criminal court, Friday, April 26, 2024, in New York. (Elizabeth Williams via AP)
Last week, I paid a visit to the Donald Trump hush-money criminal trial that was ongoing at 100 Centre Street. It was still dark when The New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman, who was first in line for the press, directed me to where the public waits.
After two sets of metal detectors, I was the last person from the public to be let in that morning. I had a seat in the last bench in what looked like wooden church pews from a denomination that had fallen on hard times. Along the baseboards of the courtroom there was a stripe of green travertine marble from a time when money was spent on courthouses.
David Pecker, the former owner of American Media Inc. (AMI), which owns the National Enquirer, was the witness for the day. I was struck by how casually Pecker appeared to describe multiple campaign finance crimes. I knew he could confess because he had already been immunized by federal authorities.
I was interested Pecker’s testimony because I’ve worked as a campaign finance lawyer for 19 years and I’ve written three books on the subject, the latest of which, “Corporatocracy,” will come out this fall.
What did David Pecker testify about?
The first thing that caught my attention was something that had nothing to do with Trump. Rather it was Pecker’s discussion of Arnold Schwarzenegger. The prosecutor asked Pecker whether he had any qualms about getting involved in politics around the 2016 election and he said he did based on his experiences in 2003 around Schwarzenegger’s run to be California’s governor.
Pecker’s testimony described how when AMI was going to purchase some fitness magazines, Pecker was told by the owner of the magazines, Joe Weider, that Pecker had to talk to Schwarzenegger first. Schwarzenegger apparently asked Pecker to be an editor-at-large of the fitness magazines and for AMI to stop running negative stories about Schwarzenegger because he was about to run for governor. Pecker said he agreed to this arrangement so that AMI could ink the deal. Shortly afterward, Schwarzenegger announced that he was running for governor on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno,” and then AMI was inundated with calls from women with stories complaining about Schwarzenegger’s treatment. Pecker said he honored the agreement to not publish negative stories about Schwarzenegger and that he bought stories from women complaining about Schwarzenegger. Pecker had no plans to publish these women’s stories.
The prosecutor asked: “Did you come to appreciate the legalities surrounding such an arrangement with a political candidate?”
