David Pecker says he bought McDougal story so it did not hurt Trump campaign

The former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker told the court in Donald Trump’s New York criminal trial on Thursday that he specifically bought a story from the Playboy model Karen McDougal to bury it so that it did not “embarrass or hurt the [Trump] campaign”.

Related: Who is David Pecker, a key witness in Trump’s criminal hush-money trial?

Following his testimony earlier in the week, Pecker, the former chief executive of American Media Inc (AMI), which publishes the Enquirer, spent hours explaining how he used his position to help Trump kill McDougal’s story about a 10-month affair she says they had in 2006.

Pecker admitted that AMI’s goal was to try to prevent the story from interfering with the Trump campaign, and that he was nervous about whether the payment would violate campaign contribution laws.

It was that anxiety that would lead him to decline helping Trump pay off Stormy Daniels in October 2016. Michael Cohen, Trump’s former fixer, ultimately paid Daniels $130,000 in October. Trump has been charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, allegedly covering up this payment on business records as legal services.

“We didn’t want this story to embarrass Mr Trump or embarrass or hurt the campaign,” Pecker said, referring to himself and Cohen, Trump’s former fixer.

Prosecutors asked Pecker to detail how AMI went about paying McDougal $150,000 for her story in August 2016. He said he worked with the former National Enquirer editor-in-chief Dylan Howard and Cohen to facilitate the payment.

Pecker recalled a phone call with Trump after the then candidate was informed about McDougal’s story. Trump, Pecker recalls, said “Karen is a nice girl” and asked Pecker for advice as to whether they should buy her story.

“I think you should buy the story and take it off the market,” Pecker recalled telling Trump.

Though Pecker expressed to Cohen nervousness about the amount AMI was paying to McDougal, Cohen said that Trump would take care of it, reiterating, “Don’t worry, I’m your friend. The boss will take care of it.”

Pecker said he had reason to be nervous about making the payment through AMI. He replied that the company had once bought a story from a woman with a story about Arnold Schwarzenegger while he was running for governor of California. She ended up going public anyway, and AMI was investigated by the authorities for potential campaign contribution violations, Pecker said.

While Pecker did not go into detail about the fallout from the Schwarzenegger story, he confirmed to prosecutors that AMI consulted with an election law attorney when they were considering paying McDougal for her story.

In the agreement AMI made with McDougal, the company included language that said she would be doing work for the company, writing a monthly column on ageing and fitness. The company wanted to make it seem like they had a “basis” for paying McDougal.

“I wanted the contract to be a record for the services that she was going to perform for American Media,” Pecker said.

The jury was shown records of the $150,000 payment, including an invoice from McDougal’s lawyer.

While AMI was on the verge of giving Cohen, and thus Trump, the rights to McDougal’s story for $125,000, Pecker said he ultimately backed out of the agreement after talking with lawyers. He would not say what they discussed, citing attorney-client privilege.

Cohen was “very, very angry, screaming basically” when the agreement was called off. He recalled Cohen saying, “I can’t believe it, I’m a lawyer, I’m your friend, I don’t understand why you’re concerned.” Ultimately, Cohen agreed to call off the agreement.

Around this time, the Access Hollywood tapes – published by the Washington Post – were causing Trump trouble in his campaign. The judge had ruled that the tapes themselves could not be put into evidence. Soin a bizarre moment, prosecutors asked Pecker to describe them.

The tapes were “Donald Trump and Billy Bush, an anchor for Access Hollywood, going on a bus, and [Trump] said the comment … ‘You can grab a woman by their genital”.

When asked what happened when the tape was released, Pecker said, “It was very embarrassing and very damaging for the campaign.”

The leak of Access Hollywood tapes serves as a backdrop to when Stormy Daniels entered the picture. Pecker said he never met or spoke with Daniels, but Howard, the National Enquirer editor-in-chief, told Pecker he heard about her story of a 2006 affair with Trump from two sources and found her to be credible.

Howard suggested that AMI purchase Daniels’s story for $120,000, but Pecker refused.

“I said I don’t want the National Enquirer to be associated with a porn star,” Pecker said. “Our largest retailer, Walmart … this would be very damaging for the magazine, very damaging for American Media.”

He recalled telling Howard: “If anyone was going to buy it, I think Michael Cohen and Donald Trump should buy it.”

Cohen would ultimately pay Daniels $130,000 at the end of October, days before the election.

Four days before election day in 2016, the Wall Street Journal reported that the National Enquirer quashed McDougal’s story. Trump called Pecker, blaming him for leaking the story.

“I said, ‘Donald, there’s no way on earth that I would leak this story,’” Pecker recalled.

Trump would go on to win the presidency, putting any concerns about the stories to rest.

Pecker said Trump invited him to the White House in January, two weeks before inauguration, where Trump thanked him for buying McDougal’s story and the story from a former Trump Tower doorman, who claimed Trump had a child out of wedlock. Pecker paid the doorman $30,000 for the story, as he testified earlier in the week.

“Do you know why he thanked you?” Joshua Steinglass, the prosecutor, asked.

“He said the stories were very embarrassing.”

Steinglass asked Pecker whether Trump ever indicated that he was thinking of his family, instead of the campaign, when quashing the stories.

“I thought it was for his campaign,” Pecker said. In conversations with Cohen and Trump, his family was never mentioned.

In 2018, McDougal sued AMI to get back the rights to her story. AMI released her from their agreement.

That year, the company also entered a non-prosecution agreement with federal prosecutors at the southern district of New York. Federal prosecutors agreed to not prosecute AMI for campaign finance contribution violations if the company agreed to provide true testimony about their dealings with Trump.

Prosecutors asked Pecker to read aloud parts of the non-prosecution agreement, which outlined the deal AMI made with McDougal, with the company admitting they were trying to interfere with the election. In the agreement, the company admitted it had paid $150,000 “to ensure that a woman did not publicize damaging allegations about that candidate for the presidential election and thereby influencing the election”.

Pecker also entered agreements with the Manhattan district attorney’s office and the Federal Election Committee.

At the end of his questioning, Steinglass asked Pecker if he had ill feelings toward Trump.

“On the contrary,” he said. Trump sat at the witness table, emotionless. “I felt that Donald trump was my mentor. He helped me throughout my career.”

The Trump lawyer Emil Bove tried to paint Pecker as an unreliable witness in his cross-examination, mixing up dates from “a long time ago”.

“These things happened a long time ago – even when you’re doing your best, and I’m sure you are – it’s hard to remember what people said almost 10 years ago,” Bove said.

Bove also emphasized, with confirmation from Pecker, that Trump had a long relationship with the National Enquirer, going back 40 years. The tabloid had always been on the lookout for negative stories about Trump, along with other politicians who had connections with the AMI, including the former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and former Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel.

Related: Donald Trump’s hush money trial: What we’ve learned so far

Before Pecker took the stand on Thursday, prosecutors said that Trump had violated his gag order – which bars him from speaking publicly about witnesses, prosecutors, jurors, court staff and their relatives – four more times over the course of the week. This brings the total violations to 14, prosecutors allege. Prosecutors said Trump had continued to talk about the witnesses, including saying that Pecker had been a “nice guy”.

“This is a message to Pecker, be nice. This is a message to others,’ I have a platform, and I can talk about you,’” the prosecutor Chris Conroy told Judge Juan Merchan. “It’s a message to everyone in this courtroom.”

Prosecutors said Merchan should hold Trump in contempt of court and fine him $1,000 for each violation. Merchan has yet to rule on the alleged violations.