At Trump’s trial, a window into the golden era of tabloids

NEW YORK — Inside a staid Manhattan courtroom last week, flashes from a bygone era appeared, recollections of a celebrity-studded world of leveraged secrets and traded favors, and one in which publications sold at supermarket checkout counters wielded real cultural and political power.

It was a world that David Pecker, the first witness called in Donald Trump’s criminal trial and the former publisher of The National Enquirer, once presided over. Trump, his old friend and associate, sat silently at the defense table as Pecker testified not only about their own dealings but also about his brushes with other celebrities: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Mark Wahlberg, Tiger Woods.

His testimony, over four days, evoked the sensational, transactional tactics of tabloid newspapers and magazines. But it was also particular to Pecker, who over two decades ran American Media Inc., the Enquirer’s parent company, commingling journalism and business interests to an extent that other executives had not in his slowly dying industry, according to people familiar with his career.

Once called the “tabloid king,” Pecker, 72, had been written about often in his decades-long career, but he had never spoken so publicly about how he operated before taking the witness stand.

Under questioning from prosecutors for Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, Pecker walked the jury through his role in an effort to suppress negative news about Trump during the 2016 presidential election. He said he helped orchestrate hush-money deals related to supposed sexual encounters, and an uncorroborated story about an out-of-wedlock child.

That scheme, prosecutors said, provides context for the charges that Trump criminally falsified records at his company to cover up one of those deals, a $130,000 hush-money agreement with porn actor Stormy Daniels on the eve of the election. Trump denies Daniels’ claims that they had sex.

One of Trump’s lawyers, Emil Bove, tried to get Pecker to admit that what he did for Trump in 2016 — paying the sources of negative stories and then never publishing them, and manipulating headlines to aid his friend’s campaign — was “standard operating procedure.” Pecker obliged to a point, describing others he had helped in the past, people his employees had branded “FOPs,” for “Friends of Pecker.”

There was Schwarzenegger, who ran for governor in California’s recall election in 2003 and ultimately won. Pecker had just purchased a group of muscle and fitness magazines from Schwarzenegger’s mentor, Joe Weider, who introduced him to the star. When they met, Schwarzenegger noted that he had been on the covers of the muscle magazines dozens of times, and he had also been the focus of negative stories in the tabloids Pecker also owned.

“And he said, ‘I plan on running for governor, and I would like for you not to publish any negative stories on me now,’” Pecker recalled.

He agreed to the request and made Schwarzenegger an “editor at large.” After Schwarzenegger announced his run for governor, women contacted The Enquirer to sell their stories “on different relationships or contacts and sexual harassment that they felt Arnold Schwarzenegger did,” Pecker said. “And I ended up acquiring, buying them for a period of time.”

It was his first so-called catch-and-kill for a politician. His staff called it “The David Pecker Project.” Pecker testified that he had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars killing such stories, mostly in small increments. Eventually, the Los Angeles Times reported on some of Pecker’s dealings involving Schwarzenegger, who denied knowledge of them.

State officials investigated his hiring of Schwarzenegger as an editor, who had to resign, Pecker said. He testified that the episode had alerted him to the possible dangers of violating election laws. (A decade later, after Schwarzenegger left office, Pecker protected him again, paying for a photocopy of a nude picture of him as a young bodybuilder.) A representative for Schwarzenegger could not be reached for comment.

Pecker is no longer publisher of The Enquirer but remains a consultant to American Media. His once booming industry declined over the years as mainstream outlets expanded their gossip coverage and the internet eroded tabloid readership.The Enquirer aggressively covered Trump during his rise as a celebrity developer in New York, chronicling “The Donald’s” romantic flings, marriages and divorces.

Pecker said he met Trump in part through Ronald Perelman, a businessperson and big advertiser whom the Enquirer had also protected. Pecker later created a magazine called Trump Style, glorifying the mogul’s brand, and held a launch party at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida for George, a political magazine he published that was founded by John F. Kennedy Jr.

“He was very helpful in introducing me to other executives and other people in New York,” Pecker testified of Trump. “And he would always advise me of parties or events or things that I would either go to or send, at that time, my editors to.”

When Pecker and investors bought the Enquirer, he said, Trump was among the first to call and congratulate him.

From then on, Pecker said, Trump was protected by his tabloid company. Pecker also promoted his presidential flirtations before the elections of 2000 and 2012. Trump became even more important to Pecker with his rise as a reality star on “The Apprentice.” Trump sent him the ratings and other content for free, and he would publish it.

“It was a great mutual, beneficial relationship,” Pecker said.Early in the week, Pecker testified that as Trump sought the presidency in 2016, he had offered to be the candidate’s eyes and ears and later advised Trump to buy one story, a Playboy model’s account of their affair, to “take it off the market.”

Pecker ended up doing that himself, for $150,000. That later led to his company admitting it had tried to influence the election in a nonprosecution agreement with federal prosecutors in 2018.

After Trump’s lawyers sought to compare that deal to what Pecker had done so many times before, one of the prosecutors, Joshua Steinglass, tried to make a distinction.

He asked Pecker how many of the hundreds of nondisclosure agreements that his company had reached over the years had been coordinated by him as the CEO “with a presidential candidate for the benefit of the campaign.”

“It’s the only one,” Pecker said.