Judge Merchan: I Have Nothing BUT Contempt for This Trump

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:44 Thomas: Right, so you may have noticed that this episode is late, that the planned Trump trial slash T3B midweek episode. I have to say, I'm kind of gonna throw Matt under the bus slightly here, with all the love in the world. Plan was for Matt to go through the transcript and grab parts of it for us to read and then also do analysis.

And I think that Matt is maybe such a fast reader, an incredibly fast reader, I think he maybe doesn't understand how long that takes, because just now, keep in mind, this is for one episode, just the transcript readings, let alone any analysis, like just the readings, two hours, two hours long of just readings, like literally just doing transcripts. So you can can imagine, imagine that the turnaround for these is like hours.

So turnaround to try to get the trial episode done with T3B is, I don't know, six hours maybe. And that includes like recording it, and so I don't think you need to be an advanced math whiz to know that that does not work, and so I though just delay it a day would let me get done, but it's such a monstrosity, if you can imagine, editing to make all that work and then intersperse the transcript with the analysis, like, Like that's, that's a big edit, So to mention recording the transcripts.

So that didn't quite cut it, but what I'm going to do is I'm going to go in order and kind of release it as it is done. I will just plug away at it. It's awesome, like, by the way, I want to make very clear, it's great, and Matt's analysis is great, and I love that he's grabbed us so many cool things to read.

I, I mean, I love doing the readings, it's like really interesting, I love during this coverage, but that obviously still dialing this in, because trying to do that in anything less than like three days would be very difficult for the amount that we did. I didn't even say this, the analysis part was 90 minutes. So, so if you do some more math, that's nearly, when all all of a sudden, done, four hours of episode, that's massive, I cannot tell you how massive that is.

So I this lovingly, I think it comes down to Matt being like mega brain genius that can read stuff in three seconds, because it would take me forever to work through those transcripts. That's what I've got for you today. I're just going going to do like an episode's amount, then I I'm just going to keep plugging away until I get, you chunks out at a time.

And, you we're going to figure this out going forward, it's great stuff, it's great stuff, and it's going to be a lot of fun once it's all out. So there you have it, can't wait to get this all out to you. Thanks so much for listening. Hello and welcome to Opening Arguments. This is episode 1029. I'm your host, Thomas Smith. That over there is real-life attorney, Matt Cameron. How are you doing?

0:03:28 Matt: For the record, I'm doing very well. Having a good day.

0:03:30 Thomas: Objection.

0:03:32 Matt: Sustained.

0:03:34 Thomas: Oh, there's so much good stuff, too much good, and I'm

0:03:37 Matt: Know how down in New Bedford here in Massachusetts they do a reading of Moby Dick that's like 48 hours long where they just have people come up to the podium and read, we should just do that for the child transcripts.

0:03:41 Thomas: Oh. That's A great idea.

0:03:45 Matt: Just do the whole thing. Let's just bang it out. What else are we doing?

0:03:45 Thomas: Yeah. Uh, Fantastic. Well, I think we'd better just get into it, because, uh, holy moly, why don't we, uh, take a quick break that patrons of patreon.com/law do not have to hear, and Where do we want to begin? Hmm.

0:03:52 Matt: Yeah, for sure.

0:04:02 Matt: All right. So I do want to start with the headlines, with the contempt. Because this is a big deal, that Donald Trump was just held in contempt. So before we dig into the transcript, I want to talk about this order, what it means, some of the legal basis. There's been some misunderstandings, I think, in the way this has been reported. Unfortunately, as much as I would like to tell you that Donald Trump now has a criminal record, which I've seen journalists saying that's not exactly true. Is criminal contempt, but it's not actually going to go down as a criminal thing. It's actually its own kind of deal. Judiciary Code Section 750 and 751 control here. And just up front before we get into the decision, so you know what we're looking at.

Is first and second degree contempt as a crime in New York, but that's what he was charged under. It was not the people were moving for. They were just looking for this willful violation of the order to go down as this kind of code contempt. It's called criminal contempt. It's under this part of the code. I found a law review article that explains a little better because I'm not a New York lawyer. I want to make sure I got it.

These kinds of proceedings are actually neither civil nor criminal. The article says they're sui generis, their own thing. Special proceedings to coerce further obedience and punish past disobedience. So good luck with that.

0:04:14 Thomas: So The, so when they go into the contempt part, it's like, not really the trial, it's a different thing. Yeah.

0:05:14 Matt: They do have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he willfully violated the order, but it's not exactly... It's just like this weird little hybrid animal that we're working with. So it doesn't mean that much, except it's a big deal that obviously he's completely disrespecting the court. I'd be pretty mad at my clients for doing it. And I think that if he were, I don't know, a low -level gang member or drug dealer, He'd be spending a couple of nights in jail for what he's been doing, but that's not where we're at.

0:05:21 Thomas: Instead, He's gonna have to fork over nearly seven dollars and 38 cents or some stupid meaningless amount of money for him. Oh.

0:05:43 Matt: Basically. And the judge is not happy about the fact that he can't charge more. He says that specifically, but he can.

0:05:50 Thomas: He's He can't Oh, wow.

0:05:52 Matt: He cannot. So yeah, that's actually in his order. He has some great language here. And I really, I've come into like Judge Marchand quite a lot, I got to say. $1 ,000 may suffice in most instances to protect the dignity of the judicial system, to compel respect for its mandates and to punish the offender, it unfortunately will not achieve the desired result in those instances where the contemnor can easily afford such a fine. In those circumstances, it would be preferable if the court could impose a fine more commensurate with the wealth of the contendor. He's suggesting up to $150,000 if he had his way, but that's not what the statute allows. So he's complaining that the statute limits him to $1 ,000 per violation or

0:05:52 Thomas: Okay. Nice. Nice.

0:06:24 Thomas: He's like, this is the first time we've ever tried to hold a rich man to account. So we're not, the system is not prepared for this. I'm sorry. Yeah, no, it's you know how it's like back in the day, you ever talked to old computer people and they're like, I remember when we got a megabyte of Ram and we thought there's no way you'd ever use that. There's no, you'd never use a megabite of Ram. That's like this.

0:06:31 Matt: Not designed for Yeah, pretty much. It's literally true.

0:06:42 Matt: Yes, that's right. Yeah, it was the Bill Gates thing about how 64K ought to be enough for anybody. Yeah. So yeah, this is, and he says, obviously, at the end of the order, he says the must therefore consider whether in some instances jail may be a necessary punishment. So he's just putting that out there that you could end up in Rikers over this.

0:06:50 Thomas: Yeah. That that's right. Yeah Yeah.

0:07:03 Thomas: Well, OK, is that part of the statute?

0:07:06 Matt: Yes. The are a fine not exceeding $1 ,000 or jail not exceedING 30 days. And it's normal in contempt orders that you have the possibility of being locked up.

0:07:15 Thomas: Well. Can't help but ask, like your view as a judge is, boy, this fiscal this financial penalty sure isn't enough. Wouldn't you maybe think about escalating to the jail part?

0:07:28 Matt: Got to give him a warning shot. And not that he hasn't had enough warning shots, but you know you got to try. Anyway.

0:07:29 Thomas: OK, so Gotcha. And we heard, by the way, patrons will be familiar with how that hearing went based on last Week's reading. It was fun.

0:07:36 Matt: Yeah. Yeah, and this is the result. This order is what comes out of it. And he does definitively for all time. He has a rule for the ages here about retweets equaling endorsements. You'll be happy to know. We finally have reached it.

0:07:38 Thomas: Oh. Wow. Big news.

0:07:49 Matt: Yes, it is. He makes the point. This is a matter of first impression about whether retweats are endorsements, but it is a very important thing. So the issue of quote-unquote reposting appears to be a question of first expression. Lacking Lacking legal authority to guide his decision, the court must, as defense counsel stated at the hearing, rely on common sense. That really came back around to bite Todd Blanche when he said that. So is counterintuitive and indeed absurd to read the expanded order to not prescribe statements the defendant intentionally selected and published to maximize exposure. This is not to say that a repost will always be deemed a statement of the reposter as context is directly relevant. However, here under the unique facts and circumstances, the only credible finding is that reposts constitute statements of the defendant. So there you go. As a matter of law, reposts are endorsements. He also deals with the Jesse Waters thing, which we enjoyed very much, where he had Trump basically edited and made up a Jesse Waters quote.

0:07:49 Thomas: Yeah.

0:08:36 Thomas: That was fantastic. I will let our non-patrons in on how funny that was, because that was only for patrons, right? Yeah, that was hilarious because Trump, Trump puts a quote, as I'm sure most people are familiar, puts a coat of Jesse Waters, and and it's some, you know, bullshit, and then he puts quote, and then it's Jesse, Jesse Waters. I agree. You know, kind of thing. And then it comes out like shortly after in the exchange that Trump added to the quote. And so he's trying to say, oh yeah, that's just something Jesse Waters, his attorney is saying, that's just something Jesse Waters said, you know, news program, whatever. And then it comes out like, wait a minute. So, but that quote isn't Jesse Waters, like some of it Trump just put in there and he's like, yes, that is, uh, that that is true.

0:08:40 Matt: Yes. Yes, yeah.

0:09:23 Thomas: That is the case. Yeah.

0:09:24 Matt: I wouldn't use the word manipulated except yes.

0:09:26 Thomas: And then Jesse Waters decided to like put it out three hours later as his own, just to help out. God, what a joke. What a clown car. Unbelievable.

0:09:35 Matt: Yeah, well, you'll be happy to know this does not require much from the judge. He says, this constitutes a clear violation of the expanded order and requires no further analysis. So there you go. Easy enough.

0:09:46 Thomas: Can you talk about the timing of this? It was a little weird that it kept, like, it felt like he was doing this a little bit at a time. Is that just a matter of practicality, or is there something deeper going on there where he's like, all right, we're going to hear some of this contempt stuff, and then like, I'm going to pause that and we're gonna go back to the your regularly scheduled trial programming? Oh.

0:10:03 Matt: Yeah, it's just, you know, the due process, because the people had to file a written motion as was required here, and they had to put it all in writing, and then they have to have a hearing on it, you know? Because, you known, they need to find beyond a reasonable doubt what this actually constitutes. Because just to be clear, this is not summary contempt, which is when you do it in front of the judge. In that case, the judge can just shoot you down right away and can immediately impose penalties.

0:10:18 Thomas: That makes sense. Yeah. Oh.

0:10:20 Matt: But if you're doing it outside the presidency of the judge, even if it's in writing and something everybody can read, you still have to be able to do it. So, you can't just do it that you'd be squeezing it in to the proceedings as you go. And has been a hearing on Thursday, May 2nd. Has not happened at the time that we've recorded. So there's going tobe even more because, of course, Trump has continued to do this. And he has said several times now that he's ready to be like Nelson Mandela and run from jail.

0:10:30 Thomas: Okay.

0:10:46 Matt: Just a perfect Perfect analogy.

0:10:45 Thomas: Famously Nelson Mandela shit talked everybody on Twitter, that was how he did it.

0:10:52 Matt: Yeah, that's how he liberated South Africa, was just trash. I mean, it's really offensive, but

0:10:56 Thomas: Boy, this apartheid system really sucks, quote Jesse Water. Sure.

0:11:03 Matt: Yeah. Yeah. In the end of the day here, the order actually found nine out of the 10 things that people were looking for. He gave him the benefit of the doubt on the 10th one and said that he was actually responding to, I believe it was regarding Michael Cohen. It wasn't really clear about what he might've been responding to something. It might've had been fair game. So he gave him the benefit on that. But nine out 10 isn't too bad for the people. And that's $9 ,000 that I'm sure they'll make good use of in New York City.

0:11:24 Thomas: All right. People, we have nine thousand dollars. The people in New York. Hey, New Yorkers, you just became, as a whole, $9,000 richer.

0:11:37 Matt: And the NYPD just spent it at Columbia. Yeah, there we go. Yeah. Just right now. Yeah.

0:11:39 Thomas: Ah, Jesus. That is dark. Okay.

0:11:42 Matt: Sorry, so, uh, yeah, so there's our contempt and, uh, Judge Marshall has joined the rest of us on holding Donald Trump in contempt. All we can move on to, uh, talk about what actually has been going on at this trial. So the last we spoke, we were talking about the gag order hearing, as you said, and that was, it was only the second day of the actual trial. On that day, David Pecker, the publisher and the head of American Media Inc., testified about how things worked. He got started on his testimony, and then they had to cut him off, and they got going again the next day on the 23rd. So there's some great stuff in this testimony from David Peacker. I think it's a really good narrative. We have a recording, I understand, that you've put together, we could play that now, I think, and talk about it.

0:12:22 Thomas: We got our hands on the official tapes. Let's go through it. I can't wait. And we're going to get sort of like, are we getting like the MST3K, the Matt, Mattstery Science Theater version you can cut in and, you you can interject and break stuff down for us?

0:12:38 Matt: This clip is pretty self-explanatory. I wanted to just provide this one just so listeners could understand what Pecker said, because I think it's actually just genuinely interesting and it is the core of the case, and I could sort of stop and talk about different places where the prosecution's asking questions for a reason. Um, this first excerpt is David Becker talking about the basic setup here for what Trump and Cohen have reached with him, the agreement that they reached in Trump Tower, what the prosecution in an opening statement called the Trump Tower conspiracy. Conspiracy. And this is essential. This is vital to the prosecution's case because they want to be able to show that Trump knew from the beginning about what was going on. This wasn't Michael Cohen out there as a free agent trying to do this stuff for him. And they want a show that Trump knew for sure that this was an election issue and it would become an election issue. So let's play that.

0:13:22 Thomas: All right now

0:13:23 Lydia: Directing your attention to a couple of months later, now in August of 2015, did there come a time when you attended a meeting in Trump Tower? You remember when roughly that meeting was in August?

0:13:37 Thomas: It was in the middle of August.

0:13:39 Lydia: Who was present for that meeting?

0:13:41 Thomas: Trump, Michael Cohen, and Hope Hicks.

0:13:44 Lydia: Was Hope Hicks there the whole time or was she in and out?

0:13:47 Thomas: She was in and out.

0:13:48 Lydia: About Michael Cohen and Donald Trump? Were they there for the duration of the meeting? Did the meeting come about? Did How you know to go?

0:13:54 Thomas: I received a call from Michael Cohen telling me that the boss wanted to see me. And that's how, when I spoke to Michael Cohen, that's how he would refer to Donald Trump as the boss.

0:14:07 Lydia: Did you understand the purpose of the meeting to be before you actually got there?

0:14:11 Thomas: Most the time when I received a call from Michael Cohen, he wanted something. So I assumed that they were gonna be asked for something, I didn't know what it was before I got there.

0:14:22 Lydia: Well, can you describe for the jury what happened at that meeting, please?

0:14:27 Thomas: That meeting, Donald Trump and and Michael, they asked me what I I do, and what my magazines could do to help the campaign. So thinking about it, as I did previously, 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 of your, I would be the eyes and ears because I know that the Trump organization had a very small staff. Then I said, anything that I hear in the marketplace, if I hear anything negative about yourself, or if I Hear anything about women selling stories, I would notify Michael Cohen, as I did over the last several years, I Would notify Michael Cohn, and dann he would be able to have them kill in another magazine or have them not be published or somebody would have to purchase them, that

0:15:17 Lydia: Purchase the negative stories about Mr. Trump so that they would not get published, you mean.

0:15:23 Thomas: They would not get published. Yes.

0:15:25 Lydia: I want to break that down a little bit. First of all, when you offered, withdrawn. Drawn. You offered to publish positive stories about Mr. Trump, to publish negative stories about his opponents, and to alert him through Michael Cohen when you came across damaging information, particularly regarding women. And the idea was that so Mr. Trump and Mr. Cohen could prevent that information from being publicized. You mentioned women in particular. Made you, are you the one who raised that? Did somebody else raise that? Can you explain to the jury how the topic of women in particular came up?

0:15:33 Thomas: Yes. Yes, yes, yes.

0:16:05 Thomas: Well, in a presidential campaign, I was the person that thought there would be a number, uh, Lot of women come out to try to sell their stories because Mr. Trump was a, was well -known as the most eligible knowledgeable bachelor and dated the most beautiful women. And it was clear that based on my past experience, that when someone is running for public office like this, it is very common for these women to call up a magazine like the National Enquirer and try to sell their stories. Or I would hear it in the marketplace through other sources that the stories are being marketed.

0:16:37 Lydia: You have or express any ideas about how you may be able to help kind of deal with these stories by women?

0:16:44 Thomas: I said was I would notify Michael Cohen. One.

0:16:47 Lydia: About Bill and Hillary Clinton? Did name's come up doing this meeting can explain how and

0:16:51 Thomas: Yes. I mentioned earlier, my having the National Enquirer, which is a weekly magazine and you focus on the cover of the magazine and who and who, and what is the story that is the topic of the week, the Hillary running for president and Bill Clinton's womanizing was the biggest, that was one of the biggest sales I had for the National Inquirer and the the other tabloids. That's the other things that the readers wanted to read about. And so that's what I would sell weekly. So I was running the Hillary Clinton stories. I was writing the Hillary as an enabler for Bill Clinton with respect to all the womanizing. And I was, was it was easier for me need to say that I'm going to continue running those types of stories for the National Enquirer.

0:17:35 Lydia: Did you believe that that would help Mr. Trump's campaign.

0:17:39 Thomas: Think it was a mutual benefit. It would help his campaign. It Would Also Help Me.

0:17:43 Lydia: I'm going to come back to that and ask you to elaborate a little bit more. But specifically for the coverage of Hillary Clinton as an enabler of Bill Clinton's womanizing, that was your focus.

0:17:48 Thomas: Okay. That's what I said.

0:17:58 Lydia: If at all, did Mr. Trump react to your suggestion that you would continue to do that?

0:18:03 Thomas: Was pleased.

0:18:04 Lydia: You discuss it at any greater length?

0:18:06 Thomas: I recollect, he was pleased Michael Cohen was pleased on the way I was going to handle these issues. And that was the basis of the conversation.

0:18:14 Lydia: So now you started to allude to earlier that to some extent, this arrangement that you came to at this Trump Tower meeting was mutually beneficial.

0:18:24 Thomas: That's correct.

0:18:24 Lydia: Can you explain to the jury what you mean by that?

0:18:27 Thomas: I'm saying mutually beneficial is in writing positive stories about Mr. Trump and covering the election and writing negative stories about his opponents is only going to increase the newsstand sales of the National Enquirer and the other tabloids. So for me, that was my benefit. And then in doing what, in publishing these types of stories was also going to benefit his campaign. So that's where I was saying that we were both mutually, both parties were benefiting from it.

0:18:54 Lydia: So by each of the things things that you agreed to do, did you believe you were doing both helping Mr. Trump's campaign and also helping sell some magazines?

0:19:04 Thomas: Yes, I needed the help.

0:19:05 Lydia: The portion of the agreement that involved notifying Michael Cohen about negative stories, either from women or some other kind of negative story, what was the ultimate objective of that component of the arrangement that you made at Trump Tower? It wasn't a good question. I'll try again. Said that part of the arrangement was that you would notify Trump through Michael Cohen if you came upon negative stories, whether they involved women or just other negative stories. Came upon stories like that?

0:19:20 Thomas: Yes.

0:19:39 Thomas: Well, as I did in the past, that would be in the past eight years. When I notified Michael Cohen of a story that was a negative story, he would try to vet it himself to see if the story was true or not. He would go to the individual publication to get the story to make sure the story wasn't published and getting killed.

0:19:57 Lydia: To that August 2015 meeting, had you ever purchased a story to not print it about Mr. Trump? That part of the deal where you were going to notify them so they could buy up negative information about Mr Trump, that part, did that part help the National Enquirer at all? How was is that going to boost sales of the National Enquirer?

0:20:18 Thomas: That didn't help. That is the mutual mutual benefit portion of it.

0:20:22 Lydia: That part doesn't have a mutual benefit. The purpose of that component was to benefit the campaign. Am I understanding you right?

0:20:31 Thomas: Is right.

0:20:31 Lydia: The part about running the positive stories, that was mutually beneficial.

0:20:35 Thomas: Yes, the part about running the tabloid stories on the opponents, that was mutually beneficial.

0:20:40 Matt: We've just heard about this meeting and about how Trump and Cohen were making this deal with him and how he's friendly with Trump. This is kind of a personal thing that he's doing because it's not necessarily going to benefit the Inquirer that much. He actually admits that it didn't necessarily help the sales of the National Inquirers for him to be buying up negative stories about Donald Trump. It's not really the best use of their money.

0:20:58 Thomas: It seems like an important distinction there it's like there is a mutual benefit in in that that sounds like there's a quid pro quo but then there's time it seemed like it was sort of I don't know if pecker was doing this on on purpose but but it it was a little bit ambiguous some of the the answers it seems to me that were like well yeah this just helped me anyway which I think would slightly undermine the case to say like if he was just doing something that benefited him but then he's like wait a minute how did it benefit the company for you to buy negative stories and do nothing with them yeah

0:21:18 Matt: Right, right.

0:21:29 Matt: And he admits right here at this part we just stopped at that the purpose of this component was to benefit the campaign. So this is really key. We want to look for these moments where they're talking about the campaign and not just, because the defense is going to try to pull this back again to say, well, no, this is just good for the paper. This is just good for business. You guys are just interested in stories about Trump. Because he does also say, I don't know if it's in this excerpt or somewhere else, but he says that the Trump stories historically have been very good for the National Enquirer, that it sells well.

0:21:31 Thomas: Yeah

0:21:54 Matt: And, you know, he said, did you catch the biggest selling issue of the NationalEnquirer? What it was?

0:21:52 Thomas: Believe it yeah oh in this I don't uh I

0:22:01 Matt: Might not have been in this, but, uh, he does mention at some point that the best-selling issue at the National Enquirer of all time was when they ran a picture of Elvis in his coffin, which pretty gross. And I guess he said for two years after, they kept running Elvis stories because people loved Elvis so much.

0:22:02 Thomas: Don't think I remember sorry oh MAN MAYBE THEY SHOULD RUN TRUMP IN HIS COFFIN THEN YEAH THAT'D BE A BECKER TRY THAT IT might you know just a business idea that's all you

0:22:19 Matt: That'll be the day. Yeah, so

0:22:31 Lydia: Any of the agreements, the agreement to print the negative stories about the opponents, positive stories from Trump, or the agreementto notify Michael Cohen about potentially negative stories about Donald Trump, were any of those agreements put into writing?

0:22:46 Thomas: No, they weren't put into writing. It was just an agreement among friends.

0:22:49 Lydia: Roughly how long would you say this meeting lasted?

0:22:52 Thomas: 20, 25 minutes.

0:22:54 Lydia: You discuss this meeting with anyone afterwards?

0:22:56 Thomas: Yes. When I went back to my office, as a matter of fact, I went immediately back to MyOffice. I met with Dylan Howard. I mentioned his name yesterday. He was the chief content officer of the company and the editor -in -chief of the National Enquirer. I described in the meeting I just had with Mr. Trump and Michael Cohen, and I described to him that this concept and agreement that I had made has to be highly, highly confidential.

So what I asked him to do was I said I asked him to notify the West Coast Bureau chief on National Enquirer. His name was Jerry George. And I asked Him to notify The East Coast Bureau Chief of the national Enquirers. Name His name is Barry Levine and I said that any stories that are out there that are commenting about Donald Trump, commenting about his family, commenting about the election, whatever it might be. I want you to vet the stories.

I want to you to bring them to me. And then I said, we'll have to speak to Michael Cohen. Will call Michael Cohen or I will call him and we'll tell him what the stories are, but I want make sure we vet them first.

0:24:01 Lydia: Did you tell him why you asked him to keep this arrangement secret?

0:24:04 Thomas: I did.

0:24:04 Lydia: What did you tell him?

0:24:06 Thomas: Told him that we were going to try to help the campaign pain. And to do that, I want to keep this as quiet as possible.

0:24:12 Lydia: If it came out that you were helping the campaign, it would kind of undermine the whole point.

0:24:17 Thomas: Objection.

0:24:18 Lydia: Sustained. Let me rephrase that. Was it important to you that the the arrangement be kept secret.

0:24:24 Thomas: Have several hundred people that work within the company and being a tabloid company, the leaks are probably more prevalent within the organization than outside the organization. I did not want want anyone else to know about this agreement I had and what I wanted to do. So that's why I wanted it very confidential.

0:24:41 Lydia: Did you follow through? Did you publish a series of pro -Trump articles in the National Enquirer?

0:24:48 Matt: So let's talk about the National Enquirer for a second. I just wanted to break in on that because I didn't know very much about the national inquirer. Have you ever read the National Inquirer?

0:24:55 Thomas: It's just stupid.

0:24:56 Matt: Just checking. I don't know anybody who has, but apparently there are people reading it because they claim to reach 3 .6 million adults a week. Week. The demographics. I was just so curious about who's actually reading this thing. We've all seen it in the checkout lines. Apparently, 58 % of their readership are women. The median household income is $57 ,000 and estimated revenues of $29 million and about $13 .5 million in earnings before everything. So they're making money somehow.

0:24:57 Thomas: I don't know, yeah, is that present day, yeah.

0:25:23 Matt: Is current numbers. That Is, I just went looking just to make sure I got the latest numbers. That's what I could find. You go looking at the National Enquirer right now, as I did just for fun, for some reason, one of the top stories they have up is a 2022 story about Amanda Seyfried's breasts. So it's kind of hard -hitting journalism that we expect. Perfect.

0:25:39 Thomas: I was gonna say truly hard -hitting journalism.

0:25:43 Matt: Frisey -Fried is fed up with smart aleck guys constantly asking her to predict the weather with her boobs. So this is, yeah,

0:25:48 Thomas: Oh, that's because of that one movie, or something. Is that Mean Girls?

0:25:51 Matt: I mean, girls, I think it was. I just learned that from the story. I learned something from the National Enquirer today.

0:25:51 Thomas: Yeah, oh boy, that would that That would be, that would get old.

0:25:58 Matt: Refer to themselves, and Becker calls them in the testimony, a news gathering organization. They don't exactly have reporters. They just kind of scoop things up and print them and buy them. In his testimony on the 22nd, the day before, he actually referred to the National Enquirer as checkbook journalism, which is a pejorative. That's not something that I would expect him to say about his own publication. But just as an interesting historical note, I was fascinated by the history of the New York Enquirers. It started as New York Inquirer in 1926.

0:26:14 Thomas: Hmm. Yeah. Gotcha.

0:26:24 Matt: It was started by a protege of William Randolph Hearst, obviously one of the biggest publishers in American history, and backed with his money. And Hearst was using it as a conservative outlet for the stuff that was too conservative for his other papers, basically. So William Griffin, the publisher, really colorful guy, he actually, at one point, he sued Winston Churchill for libel because Churchill denied that they had met. This is back in 1936. Apparently, you could just make an appointment with Winston Churchill and talk to him. And he had this meeting where Churchill allegedly told him that the U.S. should have stayed out of World War I and they should stay out of any future European war. Griffin and the National Enquirer at the time, the New York Enquirer were very conservative. They were very isolationist. They thought that the US had no business in Europe. And so the New York Times found this quote at some point and asked him about it. And Churchill called it a vicious lie. And William Griffin sued him for a million dollars then. So the believe he did.

0:26:34 Thomas: Yeah. Wow. Wow.

0:27:14 Thomas: That's a lot of dollars. Did he win that judgment against, what's his name?

0:27:19 Matt: I couldn't find anything. Thing. Yeah. At the time, according to him, offered to sell the story of the meeting for $500, which would have been about 8 ,000 today. I don't know if I could believe that or not, but that's a pretty funny detail that Winston Churchill tried to sell his story to the National Enquirer.

0:27:19 Thomas: Oh, okay.

0:27:31 Thomas: Interesting.

0:27:32 Matt: National Enquirers, as far as I can tell, is also the only newspaper ever to be indicted for sedition, which for sedition because they were kind of playing around with maybe supporting the Nazis a little bit back then. Yeah, yeah. A whole other deep dive to be had about the Great Sedition Trial of 1944, a completely forgotten moment moment in American history where a whole lot of people were indicted on sedition charges the war.

0:27:41 Thomas: Wow.

0:27:51 Thomas: I haven't forgotten it, Matt. Can't forget what you've never heard of.

0:27:55 Matt: We'll talk about it. That's one I'd want to get into. Inquirer was actually also the first East Coast newspaper to run the story of Pearl Harbor because it was the only thing that was publishing on Sunday afternoons. Was sold in 1952 to somebody that allegedly funded it with mob money. So it just kept going. To Florida, which seems like the right place for it, 1971, came back to New York in 2014. went through a forced sale because of all the embarrassment over the catch -and -kill stories and also the bad publicity with Jeff Bezos. So it has recently been purchased by the guy who brought us MoviePass, which you might remember is now bankrupt because it was such a bad business model.

0:28:27 Thomas: Wow.

0:28:27 Matt: Quite an American story, The National Enquirer.

0:28:29 Thomas: That guy ever consider buying businesses that don't suck, or is it only, it's like, I only want the ones that really suck, I don't want to just normal, you just buy like a Wendy's franchise or something, you know? Okay.

0:28:42 Matt: Well, the National Enquirer is turning a profit, apparently, on MoviePass, so it's got that going for it.

0:28:44 Thomas: Fair Enough. Fair enough. Well,

0:28:46 Matt: Otherwise, in this hearing, we learn about sort of how catch -and -kill works generally, and we have to expand the universe of catch - and -kill so that the jury can understand how this fits into the conspiracy and how this is different from other catch -in -kill agreements that he's made. Kind of a funny moment where Pecker explains, and there's a lot of testimony that's going to be coming up about Michael Cohen, this is kind of the beginning of that, where he kind of gratuitously volunteers to mention some things about Michael Cohen. So that's the next clip.

0:29:11 Thomas: We'll get our fine Juilliard trained actors to, uh, we'll press on those.

0:29:17 Matt: I kind of want to highlight these different places where the witnesses are talking about Michael Cohn because he is going to be a problem for the prosecution. Obviously, he's not a great witness, not a great guy, but the prosecution is freely bringing out and allowing the witnesses to talk about how he's Not a Great Guy and how they all hate dealing with him. And I think that's actually going to helpful for understanding his veracity about the things that the prosecution needs him to testify about.

0:29:39 Thomas: Live your life in such a way that if you're ever a witness, it's not universally agreed on by both the prosecution, the defense, the the attorneys, the the judge, the actually the court reporters, and the jury that you're a piece of shit, you know, like you don't want, you don't, like, you hey, here, everybody, let's take a vote, this guy's obviously a piece de shit, here, here, and then like the whole courtroom erupts in applause, that's live, that I'm saying live your lifestyle, not that I

0:30:00 Matt: Yeah. There's like multiple social circles and professional circles that are kind of conglomerating within this trial where they all agree that Michael Cohen sucks.

0:30:11 Thomas: Five out of five dentists actually agree on this one.

0:30:14 Matt: Universally. Them too.

0:30:16 Thomas: Would like to say one other thing, if I can, my conversations with Michael Cohen, Michael Cone would call me and say, he would say, we would like for you to run a negative article on, on, let's say for argument's sake, on Ted Cruz, then he would send me, he being Michael Cohen, would send my information about Ted Cruz, or about Ben Carson, or about Marco Rubio. That was the basis of our story. And then we would embellish it from there.

0:30:18 Lydia: Sure.

0:30:44 Lydia: We meaning...

0:30:46 Thomas: The National Enquirer, the National Enquiror. I would speak to Dylan. He would hear the story. They would start putting together the pieces of it, the photos, what makes sense, how would we try to do it, how the editorial would would be executed. It was up with the headline.

0:30:46 Lydia: Thank you for clarifying that. Me ask you, as part of your answer just now, you said that Michael Cohen would call you periodically and say, we would like you to run a negative story about this political opponent or that political opponent. Is that correct? Did you understand we to be referring to?

0:31:17 Thomas: Yes. Cohen always told me he was not part of the campaign, so that he was talking to Mr. Trump.

0:31:27 Thomas: I say we, Michael Cohen wasn't part of the campaign. When he said we, I thought he was was talking about himself and Mr. Trump.

0:31:35 Lydia: Or about? What did you understanding Michael Cohen's relationship to the campaign to be? Be.

0:31:40 Thomas: Always told me he was not a part of the campaign.

0:31:42 Lydia: Did not work for the campaign.

0:31:43 Thomas: Told me He wasn't part of The Campaign. He didn't work for The Campaign, he was on the outside. He kept saying he was Mr. trump's personal attorney and that he is a lawyer and he didn't have any issues. He said There was no issues With him with The Campaign objection

0:31:56 Lydia: What did you understand, if anything, his relationship to the campaign to be? I don't mean formal. Let me put it this way. Did you understand there to be an informal relationship between Mr. Cohen and the campaign?

0:32:12 Thomas: Objection.

0:32:12 Lydia: Sustained. Did you understand the relationship to be between Mr Cohen and The Campaign? Overruled. Can answer. What did you understand the relationship between Michael Cohen and the campaign to be?

0:32:25 Thomas: Thought that I'm going to say it it the best way I can. Michael was physically there in every aspect of whatever the campaign was working on, at least at the Trump organization, at the trump tower. He was physically there where the offices were. I thought probably he would have heard things. He wasn't part of the campaign, but I think he may've heard things informally or he injected himself into it. He said it was informal. That's what I thought because he said he wasn't part of the campaign.

0:32:56 Lydia: You say he injected himself into it, what do you mean?

0:33:00 Thomas: There were issues, for example, let's say that, let'S go back to Ted Cruz as an example. So he is physically in that environment. And if he heard, I don't know if he heard it from Mr. Trump or if he read it from another person within the campaign or someone else, that there are issues about Ted Cruz and we want this negative article to be written, I would only work with Michael. So I don'T know who else he spoke to. That'S what I was trying to say yes I

0:33:25 Lydia: When you use the phrase inject himself into it, it the campaign?

0:33:31 Matt: Yeah, that's pretty much what we got out of Tuesday. Of course, the court does not meet on Wednesday. So let's skip ahead to Thursday. Pecker's direct continues. Continues and uh so Pecker explained some interesting things about Arnold Schwarzenegger I didn't know anything about. This did you know about this

0:33:41 Thomas: Yeah. Oh my gosh. Was, I mean, not that I'm like the biggest Arnold fan, but like it's always sucks to hear that, you know, essentially every single person you've ever heard of sucks. You know, like it just, it doesn't start to feel that way.

0:33:42 Matt: Yeah yeah uh 30 to 40 women were approached, the National Inquirer at least were known to have stories, according to this testimony. So that's something, um, yeah, we could play that.

0:34:01 Lydia: Okay. So did you have any concerns about the the legality of AMI paying to kill a story regarding a political candidate.

0:34:08 Thomas: I did.

0:34:09 Lydia: Did you have those concerns?

0:34:10 Thomas: 20, uh, 2002 and 2003, I had an issue when I acquired a story for Arnold Schwarzenegger when he was running for governor of California.

0:34:20 Lydia: You explain a little bit more about that to the jury, please?

0:34:23 Thomas: In 2002, the Weider magazines, which was Shape, Muscle and Fitness, Flex, Health and Fitness titles were up for sale. Joe Weider was the founder. He developed, he founded all those magazines. He also found, we also discovered Arnold Schwarzenegger and those guys. I should say that Joe Weider and Arnold Schwarzenegger had a relationship for 50 years.

When the magazines were being sold and I went to see Joe Weider right before the sale, he said to me, "Before we finalize this transaction, you have to meet with Arnold Schwarzenegger." He gave me his phone number. Called up Schwarzenegger. I went to see him and he had the following conversation with me.

He said that, "You know, I have been on the covers of Muscle Fitness and Flex, two of the primary magazines you are buying, 70 to 80 times." He says, "I want to be an editor at large for both magazines, magazines and I would like a, I want an agreement." He said, "I'm," and he said, "You bought the tabloids," referring primarily to the Globe in the National Inquirer and he said, as I mentioned, I think on Monday, we acquired them in March of 1999. He said that, "I've had a number of litigation and lawsuits against both magazines because you always run negative stories about me." And he said, "I, I plan on running for governor and I would like for you not to publish any negative stories on me now.

I should say any negative studies about me now or in the future and I will continue on being the editor for Muscle Fitness and Flex as the, the spokesperson." I agreed and shortly after he announced on the Jay Leno show that he was running for governor and a number, after he made that announcement, a number of women called up the National Enquirer about stories that they had, that they have, I should say, to sell on different relationships or contacts and sexual harassment that they felt Arnold Schwarzenegger did.

And the deal that I had, the agreement, I should say, that I have with Arnold is that I would call him and advise him of any stories that were out there. And I ended up acquiring, buying them for a period of time. Then as he became governor, and one of the stories that I, I acquired, I wasn't going to publish.

And the person who took that story, and since we didn't, the company, since we didn't publish it, she brought it to the Los Angeles Times and the LA Times published the story. It was very embarrassing. Most of the press approached Schwarzenegger when he was governor about the story and his comment was, "I didn't know." He said, "Ask my friend, David Pecker." So it was very embarrassed to me and the company.

And at that, at that time, there was an investigation by the state with respect to Arnold being the editor of being an editor at large for these two titles. He had to resign and it was a difficult situation and it gave me the sensitivity about buying any stories in the future. So that's where, so how I became sensitive on this topic.

0:37:12 Lydia: Let me just ask you one more question about the end of what you were just saying. Did, as a result of your agreement to purchase stories, negative stories about Arnold Schwarzenegger on behalf of Arnold Schwarzenegger when he was running for governor of California, did you come to appreciate the legalities surrounding such an arrangement with the political candidate?

0:37:32 Thomas: That was the first time I ever came across a political violation, a political contribution. Contribution what a violation was.

0:37:40 Lydia: What, if any, sustained?

0:37:41 Thomas: I object to the word violation and move to strike.

0:37:46 Lydia: Did you, in your mind, take away from that experience that you had as a result of the Arnold Schwarzenegger situation?

0:37:53 Thomas: On what happened 14 years ago, I wanted to be comfortable that the agreement that we were going to prepare for Karen McDougal met all the obligations with respect to the campaign contribution.

0:38:05 Lydia: You told us that there was, withdrawn, did there come a time, and I don't want to get into what you discussed with with any attorney. But did there come a time that someone at AMI consulted with an election law attorney? And did there comes a time you finalized a deal with Karen McDougal? You tell Michael Cohen that you had finalized with Karen mcdougal, sir?

0:38:11 Thomas: Yep. Yes. Yes. I called Michael Cohen and I told him that we We finalized an agreement with Karen McDougal that the contract was bulletproof, and we consulted with a campaign attorney.

0:38:40 Matt: Important, just to establish kind of how catch and kill works, there's then just a quick discussion about David Pecker going to the White House, which I thought was interesting. There are also pictures that went into evidence where Trump invited him, basically, to thank him for all the great work he did to help get him elected, and then asks him, as they're kind of walking out to the Rose Garden, "Hey, how's Karen?" And that apparently is the moment when this picture was taken that went into evidence.

0:38:56 Thomas: Yeah.

0:39:00 Lydia: Directing your attention to July of that same year, 2017, did there come a time when you visited the White House? How did that come about? Out?

0:39:07 Thomas: I did I received a call from From President Trump's office, from his assistant, Madeline. Can't remember her last name. She said the President is on the phone. Mr. Trump called and invited me to the White House for dinner.

0:39:23 Lydia: He say why?

0:39:24 Thomas: Said it was a thank you dinner, and he invited myself and my wife.

0:39:27 Lydia: What did you say?

0:39:28 Thomas: Said that I'll speak to my wife, and I'll get right back to you. I did. My wife didn't want to go to Washington. I called back Mr. Trump and explained to him and he said, look, business friends, business associates, it's your dinner.

0:39:31 Lydia: Did you do that?

0:39:41 Lydia: Dinner meeting.

0:39:43 Thomas: Thank you dinner.

0:39:44 Lydia: Who did you bring? Did you go? Who did you bring?

0:39:46 Thomas: Yes. Yes. Brought all business associates.

0:39:49 Lydia: Don't have to tell us everybody you brought, but among the people you brought did Dylan Howard? It include David Brodsky?

0:39:55 Thomas: Yes, yes, it did.

0:39:58 Lydia: You remember who you coordinated the logistics of your visit it with.

0:40:02 Thomas: Coordinated, we coordinated everything through Madeline at the White House.

0:40:07 Lydia: What happened when you went?

0:40:09 Thomas: We arrived at the white house, I was taken, but we were all taken to the Oval Office. And in the Ovil Office, Jared Kushner was there, Sean Spicer was there. And of the People I brought to the white house was able To take a Photo with Mr Trump in The Oval office.

0:40:23 Lydia: The subject of Karen McDougal come up at all?

0:40:26 Thomas: The time to have dinner, Mr. Trump asked me to join him for a walk from the Oval office to the to the dining area, uh, passed the Rose Garden. As we walked out, President Trump asked me, "How is, how's Karen doing?" He said, "How's Karen doing?" So I said, "She's doing well, she's quiet, everything is going good, Karen."

0:40:44 Lydia: Who do you understand Karen to be a reference to?

0:40:47 Thomas: Was Karen McDougal. Oh, I love the detail about his wife did not want to go. That's

0:40:52 Matt: Just not the biggest Trump fan. It's legit.

0:40:54 Thomas: Uh yeah I mean that's that's hmm it's interesting yeah

0:41:02 Matt: Then we get into, I think, something that hasn't been reported on enough, which is this meeting that involves Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Trump's reaction to Karen McDougal having an interview with Anderson Cooper. So let's play some of that.

0:41:09 Thomas: Yeah

0:41:16 Lydia: Trump contact you in connection with Miss McDougall's appearance on Anderson Cooper. Can you tell the jury about that call before

0:41:22 Thomas: Following day I received a call from Mr. Trump. Donald called and he said to me, he says, he said, did you see the interview last night with Anderson Cooper and Stormy Daniels? I said, yes. He said, oh

0:41:37 Lydia: You go on right now. I'm just asking you about the airing of the Anderson Cooper interview with Karen McDoogle. We'll get to the Stormy Daniels interview later. So my question is, did Mr. Trump call you in connection with Karen McDougal's appearance.

0:41:45 Thomas: Yes, he did.

0:41:53 Lydia: Please tell us he told you about that.

0:41:55 Thomas: Mr. Donald Trump said when he called me that he said, did you, you see the Anderson Cooper interview with Karen McDougal? I said, yes. He said, I thought you and we had an agreement with Karen MacDougal that she can't give any interviews or won't be on any television. So I said yes. I said we have an agreement, but I amended it to allow her to speak to the press. Mr. Trump got very aggravated when he heard that I amended it, uh, he couldn't understand why, I said, Karen has a two-year agreement, she was flooded with requests from the press for interviews, and I amended her agreement at that time, he said, well then you paid her, I said yes, I paid her and I amended the agreement, so he was, he was very upset, he couldn't understand why I did it, and that was basically the conversation, it

0:42:39 Lydia: You said he was very upset, he couldn't believe that you did it. Who is the he you're referring to?

0:42:45 Thomas: Referring to Donald Trump.

0:42:47 Lydia: There come a time after that when you spoke with Mr. Trump and other members of his White House staff? In relation to the call that you had with Mr. Trump alone?

0:42:52 Thomas: Yes. I it right after the call that I had with Mr. Trump,

0:43:00 Lydia: Who else was part of that call besides yourself and Mr. Trump?

0:43:04 Thomas: Hicks and Sanders.

0:43:06 Lydia: Okay.

0:43:07 Matt: So talking about 2018 here, and Trump is furious that Karen McDougal is out there telling her story, and they want to extend the contract for another six months. Sanders is in on this call, and this is at the time when Trump is president, and he's still very concerned about these things out there.

0:43:20 Lydia: You tell the jury about that call a bit?

0:43:23 Thomas: On that call, what I was planning to do, and I mentioned on the previous call to Mr. Trump that I was going to extend Karen McDougal's contract. It was for six months. The contract was up. And I felt that from the last lunch that I, I had with her, that we had fulfilled some of the obligations that she was looking for, specifically her beauty products and media training. So I was going to send a contract, thought that was on, he thought, that was also a bad idea. I, when I received the second call, when I got the call back and Hope Hicks and Huckabee Sanders, Huckabee, when she was on the call, I explained to them, to the two of them, that, that why I was going to extend her agreement. And both of them said that they thought it was a good idea.

0:44:04 Lydia: Was the reason that you gave for why you wanted to extend Karen McDougal's contract?

0:44:09 Thomas: Wanted to extend our contract so she would not go out and give any further interviews or talk to the press or say any negative comments about American media or about Mr. Trump.

0:44:18 Lydia: You said when you had your individual conversation with Mr Trump, he was skeptical of that? About when you explained the reason that you wanted to extend her contract to Mr. Trump, Ms. Hicks, and Ms. Sanders? How did Mr. Trump react to the new plan, or did he react to that plan during that second conversation?

0:44:23 Thomas: Yes.

0:44:37 Thomas: Said, it's your business. You do whatever you plan on doing.

0:44:40 Lydia: Directing your attention to March of 2018, did there come a time when Ms. McDougal filed a lawsuit against AMI?

0:44:48 Thomas: She did.

0:44:48 Lydia: Briefly, what was the nature of that lawsuit.

0:44:51 Thomas: Lawsuit was basically for one reason. She wanted, she being Karen McDougal, wanted to get back her lifetime rights.

0:44:58 Lydia: She wanted out of the nondisclosure agreement.

0:45:01 Thomas: That's correct.

0:45:02 Lydia: Was that lawsuit ultimately resolved?

0:45:04 Thomas: We settled and I returned her lifetime rights back to Karen.

0:45:08 Lydia: You ever communicate with Michael Cohen about the lawsuit while it was pending?

0:45:11 Thomas: I did.

0:45:12 Lydia: Did you tell him what you were planning to do?

0:45:14 Thomas: Did and thought it was a very bad idea. He couldn't understand why I would agree to anything like that. I told him she's very upset. I'm not going to continue on with the potential litigation and I'm just gonna give her back her rights.

0:45:26 Lydia: Is that what you did? A few days after Ms. McDougal's appearance on Anderson did you also come to learn that Stormy Daniels was interviewed by Anderson Cooper. Did you watch that broadcast when it aired? Mr. Trump contact you in connection with Ms. Daniels' appearance on Anderson Cooper?

0:45:27 Thomas: Yes.

0:45:37 Thomas: I did yes he did.

0:45:47 Lydia: You describe for the jury how that conversation went?

0:45:50 Thomas: Mr. Trump called me he said to me the same. He asked me if I saw the Stormy Daniels interview with Anderson Cooper. I said, yes, I did. He said that we have an agreement with Stormy Danielles that she cannot mention my name or do anything like this. And each time she breaches the agreement, it's $1 million penalty. And based on the interview with Anderson Cooper, Stormy Daniels owes Donald Trump $24 million.

0:46:13 Lydia: What Donald Trump told you.

0:46:14 Thomas: That's what he told me.

0:46:15 Lydia: Directing your attention to early 2018, do you remember receiving a letter from the Federal Election Commission around that time?

0:46:22 Thomas: I do.

0:46:23 Lydia: Did you speak with Michael Cohen after receiving the a letter. You describe that conversation for us?

0:46:26 Thomas: Yes. I received the letter from the Federal Election Commission, the FEC, I called up Michael Cohen immediately and he and I just asked him, I said, Michael, I said, I just received this letter. And he so Michael Cohen said, So did I. said, What are you gonna do about that? He said, I'm gonna respond. I'm going to send him a letter. Said I'm very worried. And Michael Cohen says to me, Why are you worried? I said what do you mean? He says, Jeff Sessions is the attorney general and Donald Trump has him in his pocket. I said, I'm very worried.

0:47:00 Lydia: Your attention to September 21st, 2018, were you aware that AMI entered into a non-prosecution agreement and a statement of facts with the Southern District of New York? Is the Southern district of New York, is it your understanding that those are federal prosecutors?

0:47:11 Thomas: Yes. I understand that.

0:47:19 Lydia: You still CEO of AMI at the time that agreement was executed, what Your understanding of that non-prosecution agreement

0:47:22 Thomas: I was. Admitted to a campaign violation. Objection. Move to strike. What's going on? We've got an objection.

0:47:29 Lydia: And

0:47:35 Matt: So he's saying outright that in their non-prosecution agreement, they were admitting to a campaign violation, which isn't exactly true.

0:47:35 Thomas: Ooh, it's not.

0:47:43 Matt: There's an objection here, and to be a discussion about if this is a mischaracterization of the agreement or not, because obviously the defense is very, very concerned, concerned about not having this come out on the record that David Pecker believes that it was a campaign violation. Going to say it as much several different ways, but he doesn't want him to say it that way.

0:47:53 Thomas: Hmm. So what, what the hell's going On there? So he, he, is he just wrong? Like he just it or something. Cause I, as a, as only a highly trained actor reading.

0:48:06 Thomas: I didn't know who was necessarily right about that, you

0:48:09 Matt: Let's play the rest of this portion. We'll stop again in a second.

0:48:12 Thomas: Objection. Move to strike.

0:48:15 Lydia: Please approach. What's

0:48:16 Clip: Whereupon the following proceedings were held at sidebar.

0:48:20 Lydia: The objection can

0:48:21 Thomas: May have misheard. I thought I may have heard he admitted to an election violation.

0:48:26 Lydia: You read that back the

0:48:28 Clip: WhereupON, the requested portion was read back by the court reporter.

0:48:31 Thomas: Think that is a mischaracterization of the agreement. We understand the agreement is coming in with a limited instruction. We don't think there should be testimony about what he did there.

0:48:40 Lydia: Agreement is coming in when

0:48:41 Thomas: Yes, we're not going to object. It's coming in subject to To the limiting instructions when it's admitted, please.

0:48:46 Lydia: Would you like the limiting instructions? I Actually do think that's a fair characterization of it, yeah. Any event, to the extent that the operation of the witness's mind differs from the agreement, the agreement will be in and everything will be cleared up. That's how I read the agreement, is that they admitted to a campaign finance violation.

0:49:06 Clip: Whereupon the following proceedings were held in open court.

0:49:09 Lydia: Objection is overruled.

0:49:11 Matt: There's this whole back and forth about if there's a fair characterization by saying it's a campaign campaign finance violation, if we need to have a limiting instruction to have the jury understand some context. They kind of clear this up by just asking him directly, as a result of that, would AMI not be criminally prosecuted for campaign finance violations? So it's not that he's admitting to it. He's saying that by entering into this agreement, they're not going to be prosecuted. It's a very lawyerly distinction, really cutting a fine line there.

0:49:27 Thomas: Hmm. OK, OK. So I guess as a non lawyer, he's just like, yeah, we in his mind, it's like, yeah, yeah. We did this. So this is kind of what happens when you do the thing wrong. You got to got to do this agreement. But I guess as part of the agreement, it's not an admission of guilt kind of thing.

0:49:42 Matt: Right. Yeah.

0:49:51 Matt: I mean, if I signed a non-prosecution agreement saying I wasn't going to be prosecuted for murder. I don't think I would do that for no reason. I think there might be some basis.

0:49:57 Thomas: Right. Right. Right. At At the same time, you could technically say never admitted to murder, I guess. Yes.

0:50:01 Matt: Yep. That's right.

0:50:04 Thomas: All right. I just happened. I had nothing. No, apropos of nothing. I entered into a non-prosecution agreement on some guy's murder. I don't even know who it is. I don't know where it is and what it is I just was walking around. So I was like, hey, do you want to enter into a non-prosecution agreement on a guy's murder? I was I got nothing better to do. Yeah, sure.

0:50:04 Matt: Totally clear on that. Yeah. So Let's play it safe. It could be a problem.

0:50:24 Thomas: Yeah. True. I don't. You know what? I don't want to be prosecuted for that guy's murder.

0:50:31 Matt: So there we didn't go on, but the court does give a limiting instruction after that.

0:50:35 Lydia: Addition to that, did this agreement impose a requirement on AMI and its representatives to cooperate and give truthful testimony and information? As a result of that, would AMI not be criminally prosecuted for campaign finance violations?

0:50:51 Thomas: Is correct.

0:50:52 Lydia: Part of that agreement, did AMI make several admissions, including in statements of facts? CEO at the time, did you review that statement of facts before anyone from AMI signed the non-prosecution agreement?

0:51:07 Thomas: I did.

0:51:08 Lydia: Would like to show the witness privately what's been marked for identification as People's Exhibit 182.

0:51:14 Clip: Whereupon an exhibit is shown on the witness screen.

0:51:17 Lydia: You have that in front of you? I'm going to ask you, do you recognize that exhibit? That an exact copy of the non-prosecution agreement that AMI entered into with the Southern District of New York, along with the statement of admitted facts that's attached to the agreement?

0:51:19 Thomas: Do yes yes

0:51:34 Lydia: I offer it into evidence. You like the instruction at this time?

0:51:34 Thomas: It is no objection yes your honor thank you thank

0:51:40 Lydia: Jurors, we have just heard testimony that while David Pecker was an executive at AMI, AMI entered into a non-prosecution agreement with federal prosecutors, as well as a conciliation agreement with the Federal Election Commission. Evidence was permitted to assist you, the jury, in assessing David Peckers' credibility and to help provide context for some of those surrounding events. You may consider that testimony for those purposes only. Neither non-prosecution agreement nor the conciliation agreement is evidence of the defendant's guilt, and them in determining whether this defendant is guilty or not guilty of the charged crimes. Is

0:52:27 Thomas: You judge

0:52:28 Matt: The court gives a limiting instruction just to remind them that the whole purpose of this is to talk about credibility and that the non-prosecution agreement is not evidence of guilt. And you can't consider that, you know, about whether or not he committed campaign finance violations.

0:52:40 Thomas: Explain that. So we've talked a lot about this, understanding the fact that you get these motions in Lemonade and you get this, these rules to make sure stuff's not too prejudicial, get it. But are they, is he really saying that you can't use the fact that he had he agreed to a non-prosecution agreement about campaign finance violations, you can't use that to evaluate whether or not Donald Trump was a part of a conspiracy kind of violating campaign finance rules?

0:53:07 Matt: Right. You can just view the agreement for what it is and you can decide about Pecker's credibility as he's talking about it. And that's about it." I mean, obviously that's a fine line. I'm not sure that's how the jury would see it.

0:53:16 Thomas: I was gonna say if I was a juror I don't know that I would know what the hell that means like So the guy in his own words he thinks he admitted to uh campaign finance violations he's telling us that Trump kind of directed that but I'm not allowed to use that as evident I don't know so I guess okay is the distinction that you're not allowed to think as a juror hey this is like black and white it's on paper officially this is campaign finance violations but you are allowed to think like well okay there's a problem with campaigns finance violations based on like this agreement's existence or is it not Not even that. Is it that you have to like evaluate Pecker's testimony based on this? Boy, that's hard to parse. I don't know what's going on there.

0:53:20 Matt: Yeah, sure. Yeah.

0:53:58 Matt: It is. Yeah but essentially, you just how credible do you think it is that he thinks he committed a campaign violations or why would he sign the agreement, right? Like what was his motive in doing that. You can look into all that kind of thing. But yeah, again, I don't know how much this registers with juries. I don'T know how much people really sort these things out.

0:54:09 Thomas: Interesting. I know. I have wanted to ask you that if I haven't already. Part of me wonders if like these hair splitting things that you lawyers, you lawyers argue about in the jury is like, I don'T know what any of that is, man. Man. I don't know. I just heard a guy say he violated campaign finance rules. So he violated campaign finance roles. I dunno.

0:54:24 Matt: Yeah. Right. If a lawyer was chat GPT and you could just say, give me an answer that doesn't account for whatever I just told you, right? But that's not how brains work. It's not what people work. I DON'T know.

0:54:37 Thomas: Right. Yeah. Right, that's as much as I could get done for this first episode, this first installment, and you can expect much more to come. Please support the show. It's so important. It really does make it happen. You to all those who do support the show. Hope you enjoy the goodies and the not ads. That's the best part. So much for listening. We'll see you next episode.

0:55:02 Clip: This podcast is a production of Opening Arguments Media, LLC, All Rights Reserved. It is produced and edited by Thomas Smith, who also provided the fabulous intro and outro music used with permission.