What I'd Ask Trump Trial Witness David Pecker:

How Much Did You Pay For The Cover Stories About UFO Abductions?

My takeaways so far from the Trump Trial:

We’ve had a worm’s eye view of the inner workings of two worlds: the first is that of America’s sleaziest tabloid, the National Enquirer, and the second is several meetings in Trump Tower, with an emphasis on goings-on in the office of Michael Cohen, Trump’s former personal attorney.

Both views are so-far through the lens of the first witness, David Pecker, the former CEO of American Media Inc, (AMI), the company that owned the Enquirer. Pecker - his real name - is a mustachioed man who appears to be literally and metaphorically dripping with grease.

(I’d forgotten, until this week, that I met him once, many years ago. He appeared in my kitchen in New York’s West Village, to ask if I would be interested in relocating to Florida and running one of his magazines. I gave him a cup of tea and politely told him “No”).

I’m not sure how he had gotten to me, but we’ve learned in the last few days that the National Enquirer can get to pretty much anyone given that its numerous “sources” were high-level and included Donald Trump. The businessman Ronald Perelman, bafflingly, is described in a throw-away line as a “client” of Pecker’s in the 1980s.

Client of what?

One of Pecker’s creepiest lines of testimony is one that has nothing to do with Trump but will likely horrify not only people in the public eye, but anyone who deliberately builds an eco-system of trustworthy people around them for discretion and privacy - which at some level, we all do.

According to Pecker, the “job” of the editor-in-chief of the Enquirer was to cultivate the people-around-people as “sources” .

In his own words: “sources might be people who work for various different aspects of a celebrity…for example, people who work in hotels, people who work for lawyers… a limousine service.”

On his watch, the Enquirer, he reassuringly testified, had hundreds of “sources”.

Goosebumps, anyone? Will you chat with your doorman, housekeeper or even your own children so freely again?

He also explained that his philosophy of journalism was simple. He was prepared to spend substantive money on just one piece of weekly content:

“Being in the publishing industry for 40 years, I realized early in my career that the only thing that was important is the cover of a magazine.”

So, if I were in court and allowed to cross examine him, my question, entirely unrelated to Trump, but surely of great importance to former readers of the Enquirer would be: How much money did you spend on all those covers of UFO abductions?

The only times I ever stopped and stared at the cover of the National Enquirer on my way out of the grocery story was whenever, as it frequently did, it warned of an alien kidnapping, or a new sighting of life on Mars, with grainy, blurry black and white photos that were impossible to analyze.

Pecker’s testimony reminded me of a saying in the newsrooms I used to work in: “The Enquirer has good reporting in it, except for whatever garbage is on the cover.”

Oh, well.

On to Mr Pecker’s self-declared infatuation with the defendant, who has, rightly, I am told from someone there each day, complained about the freezing temperature in the room: Donald Trump.

I know prosecutors want jurors to be horrified by the alleged “conspiracy” between Trump, Michael Cohen and Pecker to “catch and kill” stories about Trump’s alleged sex-life with a Playboy Playmate, a Porn Star - and a maid, allegedly in order to win the 2016 election.

But, so far, I am more horrified by the amount of sucking-up to Trump exhibited by Pecker, who clearly wasn’t doing this just to help Trump - but to help magazine sales - and by the desperation of Michael Cohen, whom I know well.

Pecker’s descriptions of Michael, remind me of a Michael I knew, but I’ve forgotten, given the journey he’s been on. He’s become a much-different man, for obvious reasons.

But Pecker’s testimony takes me - and the jury - back in time to the Michael I met in early 2017, when he was not just loyal to Trump, but a believer.

It’s a time when Michael still thought erroneously that Trump truly wanted him in Washington, DC, by his side as Chief of Staff, but that the kids and Jared had conspired against him (which, in fairness, they had); when he still believed that Trump would be there for him; that Trump would never do the one thing that Trump did ultimately do: which was to completely desert him (Remember, Trump didn’t pay Michael’s legal fees…he didn’t pardon him. And he trashed him).

In short, Pecker’s lens of Michael gives us a close-up of Michael as Fredo; a guy who, like Pecker will do anything - anything - to be in Trump’s good books.

It’s a story that has played out sadly for Michael, thus far.

A key question for the jury going forward will obviously be how much evidence the prosecutors have that independently corroborates Michael’s upcoming testimony, given that the defense will paint him as an unreliable witness.

Not that any of the likely witnesses, as far as I can see, would qualify as the “saints” at a saints and sinners party. David Pecker certainly doesn’t seem to be too bothered about unveiling the dark deeds of the pond-scum universe he inhabited, and even managed, for forty years.

So, back to the questions about how much all those UFO abduction covers cost? And who were the “sources” for those?

I doubt I’m the only person who wants to know.