The trial of Donald Trump in New York in this story of a bribe possibly paid by the former president to porn actress Stormy Daniels to buy her silence began on Monday and already the journalists who follow the case are expect merciless smear campaigns.
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The correspondent in the United States for Paris Match, Olivier O’Mahony, put into context on the show Le Bilan the people who were called to testify against Mr. Trump.
He first explains that the prosecutor agreed with a man named David J. Pecker, a tabloid editor and former “friend” of Donald Trump, so that he would take the stand under oath to testify against the ex-president in exchange for total immunity.
Olivier O’Mahony explains that David Pecker “was a colorful person.”
“He has a slightly high-pitched voice and long, slicked-back hair. He’s a bit of a “playboy” from the 80s and we can see him getting along like thieves with Donald Trump, he notes. It’s really the same kind of character.”
He says that Mr. Pecker was known for ruling his press group “with an iron fist” and that the journalists who worked for him perceived him as an “almighty god”.
“As soon as we touched a “friend of Pecker” (FOP), we always had to be very careful,” maintains the journalist.
“So Pecker was indeed a friend of Donald Trump and he calculated that by providing services to him, he could sell more magazines,” said Mr. O’Mahony in an interview.
From friend to foe
David Pecker now finds himself on the other side of the table from Donald Trump, testified in a trial against the former president.
According to his statements, Mr. Pecker pledged during the 2016 elections to “be the eyes and ears of Trump and took pains to suppress any embarrassing affairs that could handicap Donald Trump’s campaign,” the journalist maintains.
“David Pecker came to the table to avoid being prosecuted,” he explains. According to the prosecution, what he has already said under oath is that he covered up at least three compromising affairs for Donald Trump.
Among these stories, one talks about a “fabulous concierge who claimed that Trump had a natural child with one of his former employees”. According to his testimony, the publisher therefore paid this person $30,000 to dismiss the “scoop” and thus not publish it.
The second would concern a model “who (claimed) herself to be Donald Trump’s mistress”, Karen McDougal, who would have been, in turn, paid $150,000 by David Pecker’s press group so that she would not reveal his secrets.
The third is of course the one that made the headlines and is at the center of the trial, the Stormy Daniels affair.
“There, it is not the publisher David Pecker who would have paid, but Michael Cohen – personal lawyer of Donald Trump – and that is where the shoe pinches because it is the heart of the trial”, affirms the correspondent .
***Watch Olivier O’Mahony’s full interview in the video above***
