Opinion: How Trump’s tabloid ally pecked holes in his case

(CNN) — After a solid start for former President Donald Trump on day one of his New York criminal trial with defense attorney Todd Blanche’s effective opening statement, the former president’s case suffered two substantial blows on Tuesday.

We had predicted that Trump’s contempt hearing was going to be bad for him – and it was even worse, with Justice Juan Merchan telling the defense that they were “losing all credibility” in arguing that Trump tried “very hard” to comply with his gag order. The judge reserved his decision, so we’ll see what happens next. Whatever it is, it almost certainly won’t be good for Trump, who stands to face sanctions on some and perhaps all of his statements attacking witnesses and jurors. We are guessing fines and a stern warning that if he continues he will face possible confinement.

But as negative as that was for Trump, when we got back to witness testimony a little after 11 a.m., what ensued with former American Media CEO and National Enquirer publisher David Pecker’s testimony may have been even more damaging.

Remember, the prosecution’s theory here includes allegations that Trump engaged in “an illegal conspiracy to undermine the integrity of a presidential election” in 2016 (and then took steps “to conceal that illegal election fraud” through helping promulgate 34 false documents in 2017). On Tuesday, they established compelling evidence to support the conspiracy part of that. Indeed, in many ways Pecker is that part of the case – what follows his 2015 agreement with Trump is just implementation of the plan to interfere with the election that he so convincingly testified about.

Pecker talked persuasively and at length Tuesday about the formation of the conspiracy, but his testimony cut (or will cut) across all five acts of the Shakespearean drama here. His August 2015 meeting with Trump and former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen is Act One that laid the foundation for the “catch-and-kill” schemes later implemented to benefit Trump’s campaign. But Pecker’s testimony also included his attempts to silence allegations by doorman Dino Sajudin that Trump had fathered an illegitimate child or engaged in a yearlong affair with model Karen McDougal: Acts Two and Three, respectively.

Pecker brought that to life, acting as a tour guide and bringing the jury inside the scheme. Because he took them into the rooms and onto the phone calls with Trump and/or Cohen to influence the election, it will be easier for the jury to understand how that same plan and alleged corrupt intent unfolded in the next two acts of the drama – the panic set off by the Access Hollywood scandal (Act 4), followed by the parody to buy the silence of Stormy Daniels (Act 5) – that we will hear about on Thursday when Pecker continues his testimony.

And this was even more persuasive because Pecker is no “Never Trump” adversary. He is someone who was, as he explained to the jury, a close Trump friend and supporter who was intimately aware of the former president‘s business practices.

Indeed, even though Pecker is primarily here to support the first half of the case – the scheme – his proximity to Trump was such that he even bolstered the second part of the case: the allegation of a document falsification cover-up. Pecker testified that he witnessed Trump handling accounts payable paperwork like that at issue here, personally signing checks after carefully reviewing the attached documentation. Look for prosecutors to cite that to the jury as part of their proof that Trump did the same thing with the checks he signed here and the accompanying materials that make up the 34 allegedly falsified documents.

Further, Pecker is not Cohen, whom the defense has sharply criticized before Trump’s former fixer even takes the stand. Pecker can corroborate both Cohen’s testimony and the whole scheme – and that may make him the prosecution’s most important witness.

Of course, that’s not to say that the day was all bad for the defense. For instance, Pecker said that while he assumed that directives to publish or suppress certain stories came from both Cohen and Trump, it’s possible that Cohen may have acted on his own accord in an attempt to get involved in Trump’s campaign. That lets Trump’s attorneys challenge prosecutors’ assertion that their client was aware of the full scope of his then-fixer’s activities.

So, what happens next? On Thursday, prosecutors will continue their direct examination of Pecker before turning it over to the defense for cross-examination later that day or Friday. Because Pecker is so important, the defense really has to come after him – so stay tuned for fireworks. What that cross could look like will be the subject of this trial diary on Thursday morning.

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