Thread by @stewartbishop

Good morning from Manhattan and the hush money trial of Donald Trump, who's accused of falsifying business records to cover up funds paid to adult film star Stormy Daniels to keep her quiet about an affair, out of fear the news would damage his election prospects in 2016.

Wow, this is unrelated, but New York's highest court just now ordered a new sexual assault trial for Harvey Weinstein.

Back to the trial at hand, today we're expecting to hear more from David Pecker, formerly of the National Enquirer, who testified on Tuesday that he agreed to push negative stories about Trump's opponents in 2016, while producing positive coverage of Trump.

Justice Juan Merchan takes the bench. Before things get underway, there's a evidentiary dispute about some docs that Trump's team claims are hearsay. The judge punts on the matter for now.

Prosecutor Chris Conroy gets up and claims Trump has again violated the court's gag order that bars the former president from publicly attacking witnesses, prosecutors, jurors and court staff, as well as their family members.

Conroy cited remarks made to the press outside the courtroom after the trial wrapped up on Tuesday regarding his former attorney Michael Cohen, and something he said this morning about Pecker at some sort of event in NYC.

Cohen is expected to be the star witness in this trial.

Sounds like we’ll get back to the gag order thing at some point. Pecker retakes the stand.

Pecker is testifying about Playboy model Karen McDougal, who prosecutors say received $150,000 to conceal an alleged extramarital affair she had with Trump.

Pecker speaks about a 2016 conversation he had with Dylan Howard, the former editor-in-chief of the National Enquirer, who Pecker tasked with vetting McDougal. Howard called her a “12 out of 10,” Pecker says, and said he believed the story about a year-long affair with Trump.

At the time, Pecker said he was in frequent contact with Michael Cohen, who denied that Trump had an affair with McDougal. However, at one point, Pecker says he spoke to Trump directly about McDougal

“Trump called me and said ‘I spoke to Michael. Karen is a nice girl,’” Pecker says. “He said ‘what do you think I should do?’ I said we should buy the story and take it off the market.”

"I believed the story was true, I believed it would be very embarrassing to [Trump]...and also his campaign," Pecker says.

“Dylan [Howard] said she didn't want the story to be published.” Pecker says. “She didn't want to be the next Monica Lewinsky.”

Pecker agreed to negotiate with McDougal over the purchase of her story, he says.

Eventually, they agreed on a price of $150,000. However, Pecker said he was worried about wading into politics in connection with McDougal's story. He says he got burned back in the early 2000s in connection with Arnold Schwarzenegger's campaign for governor of California.

He says after Schwarzenegger announced his run, various women contacted the National Enquirer with stories about encounters with him. Pecker had some sort of deal with him to write for fitness mags, and said he had agreed not too publish negative stories about Schwarzenegger.

Pecker said he ended up buying some of the women's stories, but something was published in the LA Times, which led to some sort of investigation by state authorizes. It was embarrassing, Pecker says, so he was wary about dealing with the Trump/McDougal thing.

However, he agreed that AMI would pay McDougal $150,000 to buy her Trump story, and kill it. As part of their agreement, AMI agreed to have McDougal...write some columns or something? Anyway, Pecker says he did that to provide cover for the payment to McDougal.

“I called Michael Cohen and told him we finalized the agreement with Karen McDougal...[and] that the contract was bulletproof and we consulted with a campaign attorney,” Pecker says.

“Did you ever have any intention of publishing [her] story about Donald Trump?” Assistant District Attorney Joshua Steinglass asks.

“No we did not,” Pecker says.

“Do you know if anyone else had knowledge about this contract (with McDougal)?”Steinglass asks.

“I believe Donald Trump knew," Pecker says, in addition to Michael Cohen.