In the hush money trial of former President Trump, Florida Judge Jeff Swartz commended former National Enquirer owner David Pecker as a “outstanding” first witness and called him “incredibly credible.”
“I think David pecker was an outstanding choice for the first witness,” Swartz stated. “He set the stage and he set the whole scene up for the jury.”
“And he was really very good on cross-examination,” he further added. “I don’t think that he actually got impeached in any really serious way. I think that people are going to look at his testimony and start building around it. I think the jury paid attention to him from all accounts, they pay very close attention to him. And I think he was incredibly credible. And I think that that really went a long way for the prosecution.”
Professor of law Swartz praised Pecker’s cross-examination performance, pointing out that Trump’s attorneys did “very little” to undermine his credibility.
“But when it got really intense, when it was really down to Trump and Hillary [Clinton], who were running for president, things got really intense at AMI and they ran a lot of stories beyond what they used to run,” Swartz stated. “I think that that became pretty clear too that this was part of what needed to be done to help the campaign.”
Pecker was chosen to testify as the first witness in Trump’s very first criminal prosecution.
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His testimony this week, which covered all four days of the trial, provided additional insight into the National Enquirer’s involvement in dispelling unfavorable rumors about the former president and spreading unfavorable, frequently untrue, rumors about his opponents.
During the redirect examination, prosecutor Joshua Steinglass questioned, “Did you suppress the stories to help a presidential candidate.” He was referring to Trump.
“Yes I did,” Pecker stated.
The longtime executive assistant to the previous president, Rhona Graff, was the second witness to testify.
According to Swartz, the prosecutors ought to “start dealing with more of the records to help with Michael Cohen” as they proceeded to develop their case against the former president.
“I think that they’re also going to start bringing in other people who work basically on the campaign to set the stage again, for what Mr. Trump’s attitude was and his anger that he exhibited, and his fear of things coming out as it related to the campaign and the discussions that took place relating to the campaign that sets the stage for Michael Cohen to finish it off,” he stated.
