At times dishing salacious details, former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker took to the witness stand over four days to lay out the case the prosecution plans to make in the coming weeks.
For their purposes, he may have been the perfect witness to go first.
Pecker was able to drop the names of many of the witnesses who will come after him — from Hope Hicks to Michael Cohen — giving the jury a complete image of what they will hear as prosecutors try to convince them that Donald Trump oversaw a scheme to influence the 2016 election by paying women who accused him of infidelity to keep their stories secret.
But Pecker was also able to touch on the more mundane aspects of the case, the way that companies operate behind the scenes, the rote process to produce invoices and record expenses. Accounting practices are at the heart of Trump's charges, meaning prosecutors can't just focus on the alleged affairs and payments, but also need to dig into the record-keeping.
Pecker talking about his anger over requests that he pay a porn actress Stormy Daniels provided the jury spice to keep them engaged and offset the doldrums of business ledgers.
But the question of the week will be how effective the defense was on cross-examination. Trump's lawyer Emil Bove didn't try to push an alternative narrative or lay his questions out in a crescendo to an overarching point. Instead, it was a staccato drumbeat of pointed inquiries meant to punch holes in the story and discredit Pecker as a narrator.
Some appeared to land with aplomb — like when Pecker seemed to confuse dates and times under questioning. Others were less apparently successful, leaving courtroom watchers to wonder if the defense will be able to tie the small threads together into enough reasonable doubt to acquit.
Rhona Graff, Trump's longtime assistant who handled his emails and meetings, took the stand next, on Friday, in testimony that concluded in less than 45 minutes. But that was enough time for her to testify that Daniels and Karen McDougal's cellphone numbers were saved in Trump's contacts — including multiple numbers and addresses for McDougal.
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