Newspaper chief was Donald Trump’s ‘eyes and ears’ and ‘killed unfavourable stories about him’, court hears
A newspaper chief was Donald Trump’s “eyes and ears” and killed unfavourable stories about him in the run-up to the 2016 election, a court has heard.
Trump has made history as the first former US president to face a criminal trial.
He stands accused of paying hush money to porn star Stormy Daniels in an effort to cover up their alleged affair and falsifying business records in order to do so.
David Pecker, the former boss of publisher AMI, took the stand as the first witness in the trial, as he described participating in a “catch and kill” scheme with Trump and Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen to bury unfavourable press coverage during the 2016 presidential campaign.
Manhattan’s criminal court also heard Mr Pecker, who signed a “non-prosecution” agreement with prosecutors after AMI admitted to making hush-money payments, describe his role as being the “eyes and ears” for Trump.
Mr Pecker said he would flag stories to Mr Cohen, who would check if they were true or not. This agreement was never put in writing but Mr Pecker divulged it to Dylan Howard, editor-in-chief of the National Enquirer, one of his publications.
Catch up: how the day unfolded in court
Trump waits for the start of proceedings. Pic Reuters
Mr Pecker told the court of a meeting he attended in August 2015 with Trump, Mr Cohen, and Hope Hicks, the communications director for the former president.
‘I would be the eyes and ears’
He said: “At that meeting with Donald Trump, they asked me what can I do to help the campaign.
“I said what I would do is I would run or publish positive stories about Mr Trump, and I would publish negative stories about his opponents.
“I said that I would also be the eyes and ears.”
In particular, Mr Pecker said that he would notify Cohen if he heard any negative stories relating to Trump and alleged relations with any women “because Mr Trump was well known as the most eligible bachelor and dated the most beautiful women”.
He added: “It was clear that, based on my past experience, that when someone was running for public office like this, it is very common for these women to call up magazines like the National Enquirer to try to sell their stories.”
The court heard of one such example where Mr Pecker paid $30,000 (£24,000) to buy a story about Trump allegedly fathering an illegitimate baby with a maid.
Trump was accused of hatching a “catch and kill” scheme to bury unfavourable press coverage during the 2016 presidential campaign. Pic: Reuters
Trump waves to crowds outside court. Pic: Reuters
Mr Pecker said: “I immediately called Michael Cohen and told him exactly what I was told.
“I gave the name of the housekeeper in the penthouse and asked him to verify it first with the Trump Organisation payroll.”
Buying off negative press
Mr Pecker bought the story but said investigators found the story to be untrue and says Cohen told him it was “absolutely not true”.
He added: “I made the decision to buy the story because it could have been embarrassing to the campaign and Mr Trump.”
Hanging over today’s proceedings were allegations that Trump violated a gag order in social media posts and on his campaign website.
The gag order restricted Trump’s public speech on jurors, potential witnesses and some others involved in the case.
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Prosecutors asked the judge to fine Trump $10,000 (£8,000) for ten online posts they say violated the order, but the judge hadn’t made a decision by the end of the day’s proceedings.
Political opponents targeted
However, alongside protecting Trump’s image, the court heard that Mr Pecker allegedly targeted his political opponents.
He said: “I would run a Hillary Clinton story as being the enabler to a womaniser.”
The prosecution asked: “Did you believe it helped Trump’s campaign?”
Mr Pecker told the court it was mutually beneficial because it led to newspaper sales and benefited Trump’s campaign.
The court was told that Mr Pecker’s publisher would also run stories about Trump’s Republican opponents “based on the success of some of the candidates”.
He added: “I would receive a call from Michael Cohen, and he would direct me and direct Dylan Howard which candidate and which direction we should go.”
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National Enquirer headlines
Some headlines published by the Enquirer included:
• Bungling Surgeon Ben Carson Left Sponge in Patient’s Brain!
• Ted Cruz Shamed by Porn Star
• Boozin’ Ted Cruz Fixin’ To Lose
• Shocking Claims: Pervy Ted Cruz Caught Cheating – With 5 Secret Mistresses
• Anonymous Threat! Hackers Threaten Ted Cruz with Alleged Prostitution
• Donald Trump Blasts Ted Cruz’s Dad for Photo with JFK Assassin
Also amid today’s proceedings, it emerged that Mr Pecker was one of the first people to encourage Trump to run for president.
In early 2015, Mr Pecker says he told Trump that 80% of the readership of the National Enquirer wanted him to run for president.
He received an invitation to the announcement that Trump would run, made in June 2015, which the court heard read: “No one deserves to be there more than you.”
Nicholas Rossi, an American man who faked his death and fled to Scotland to escape rape charges, has been jailed for at least five years.
The sentence handed down to the 38-year-old is the first of two he faces after being convicted separately in August and September of raping two women in 2008.
Utah has “indeterminate sentencing” – meaning jail terms handed down are in a range of years rather than a fixed number, with release dates set by the state’s parole board.
Nicholas Rossi appearing in court in August. Pic: AP
During August’s three-day trial, Rossi’s accuser and her parents took the stand – with the victim telling the court that he left a “trail of fear, pain, and destruction” behind him.
“This is not a plea for vengeance. This is a plea for safety and accountability, for recognition of the damage that will never fully heal,” she said.
Brandon Simmons, a prosecutor in the case, alleged Rossi “uses rape to control women” and posed a risk to community safety.
Rossi – whose legal name is Nicholas Alahverdian – maintained his innocence during the sentencing hearing. In a soft, raspy voice, he said: “I am not guilty of this. These women are lying.”
He was first identified in 2018 after a decade-old DNA rape kit was examined.
How Rossi was caught
But in February 2020 – months after he was charged in one of the cases – an online obituary claimed he had died of non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
Rossi was arrested in Scotland the following year while being treated for COVID, after hospital staff recognised his distinctive tattoos – including the crest of a university he never attended.
A protracted court battle meant he wasn’t extradited until January 2024, with Rossi claiming he was an Irish orphan named Arthur Knight who was being framed.
Investigators identified at least a dozen aliases that he had used to evade capture over the years.
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One of his victims had been recovering from a traumatic brain injury when she responded to a personal advert that Rossi had posted on Craigslist.
They began dating and were engaged within a couple of weeks – and according to her testimony, Rossi had asked her to pay for dates and car repairs, lend him money, and take on debt for their rings.
She told the court that Rossi raped her in his bedroom one night after she drove him home – and went to police years later after discovering that another woman in Utah had come forward with accusations.
Rossi is due to be sentenced for the second conviction in November.
US
‘Ukraine can’t win war,’ says Trump – as reports emerge of another tumultuous meeting with Zelenskyy
Donald Trump has said he doesn’t think Ukraine can win the war against Russia – as reports emerge of a less-than-harmonious meeting between the US president and Volodymyr Zelenskyy .
Asked about the conflict by a journalist during a visit to the White House by Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, the Mr Trump responded bluntly: “I don’t think they will,” before adding: “They could still win it, I never said they would win it… War is a very strange thing, a lot of bad things happen.”
It is a marked change from his comments a few weeks ago at a UN gathering in New York where he said Ukraine could retake “all of its territory”.
And it comes after the Financial Times claimed the behind-the-scenes of Mr Trump and President Zelenskyy’s meeting in Washington on Friday had descended into a “shouting match”.
According to the paper, the US president repeatedly told his Ukrainian counterpart to accept Vladimir Putin‘s terms for ending the war – warning him that the Russian leader would “destroy” Ukraine if it did not agree.
Mr Zelenskyy later attempted to pour water over the suggestions, saying their meeting was “positive” and that Ukraine was preparing a contract to buy 25 Patriot air defence systems as a result of their talks.
However, Mr Zelenskyy said he did not secure the Tomahawk missiles he had wanted for Ukraine. The long-range missiles would have been a major boost for Kyiv.
“In my opinion, he does not want an escalation with the Russians until he meets with them,” Mr Zelenskyy said.
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Why Tomahawks are off the table
Meanwhile, Hungary’s foreign minister Peter Szijarto has announced he will visit Washington on Tuesday. It follows claims from Mr Trump that he would meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Budapest soon.
Will the pair meet again soon? File pic: Reuters
And on Monday, US secretary of state Marco Rubio had a phone call with Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov.
According to the state department, Mr Rubio and Mr Lavrov spoke about possible concrete steps to implement understandings reached during the call between Mr Trump and Mr Putin last week.
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‘Recovery’ after major internet outage
Mr Rubio had, a statement said, also “emphasised the importance of upcoming engagements as an opportunity for Moscow and Washington to collaborate on advancing a durable resolution of the Russia-Ukraine war, in line with President Trump’s vision”.
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Also on Monday, French president Emmanuel Macron announced there will be a meeting of the coalition of the willing in London on Friday which Mr Zelenskyy will attend.
The coalition – co-chaired by Sir Keir Starmer, Mr Macron and Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz – has the aim of bringing countries together to protect a peace deal in Ukraine.
Dozens of websites, banks and apps are being affected by a major internet outage.
The problem, which started on Monday morning, appears to be related to an issue at Amazon Web Services (AWS).
As of 9.20am, there were more than 2,000 reports of the Amazon Web Services outage in the US alone, according to Downdetector, which monitors issues and outages in real-time.
On its service status page, the company said it was seeing “increased error rates” and delays with “multiple AWS services”.
Here’s what we know so far.
Pic: PA
Pic: PA
Pic: PA
What has been affected?
Multiple banks, the HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) website, mobile phone networks and video-chatting platform Zoom are among the websites having technical issues.
All Amazon products – including Prime Video and Amazon Music – have also been affected, as well as the main Amazon website.
Here’s a full list of what has been affected by the internet outage, according to Downdetector:
• Snapchat
• Ring
• Roblox
• Amazon Web Services
• Life360
• My Fitness Pal
• Amazon
• Xero
• Signal
• Canva
• Fortnite
• Blink Security
• Zoom
• HMRC
• Clash Royale
• Clash Of Clans
• Asana
• Wordle
• Slack
• Smartsheet
• Epic Games Store
• Duolingo
• Amazon Alexa
• Jira
• Vodafone
• Tidal
• Coinbase
• Atlassian
• IMDB
• Amazon Prime Video
• Pokemon Go
• BT
• Peloton
• EE
• Ancestry
• Square
• Playstation Network
• Eventbrite
• Amazon Music
• Sky
• Flickr
• Hay Day
• Rocket League
• Perplexity AI
• Dead By Daylight
• Bank Of Scotland
• Lloyds Bank
• Halifax
What has AWS said?
AWS confirmed it was suffering from “increased error rates and latencies” for multiple services.
In a statement on its website, the company said: “We are actively engaged and working to both mitigate the issue and understand root cause,” an update on its website says.
“We will provide an update in 45 minutes, or sooner if we have additional information to share.”
The company is posting regular updates on the situation and said its engineers were “immediately engaged” as soon as they spotted the issue.
Concentrated in the US
ThousandEyes, a website that tracks the performance of local and wide area networks, servers and applications, shows many of the outages appear to be concentrated in the US.
A large portion is focused in Virginia, which is widely considered as the global capital for data centres.
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