News
'Catch-and-kill' to be described to jurors as testimony resumes in hush money trial of Donald Trump
NEW YORK (AP) — A longtime tabloid publisher was expected Tuesday to tell jurors about his efforts to help Donald Trump stifle unflattering stories during the 2016 campaign as testimony resumes in the historic hush money trial of the former president.
David Pecker, the former National Enquirer publisher who prosecutors say worked with Trump and Trump’s lawyer, Michael Cohen, on a so-called “catch-and-kill” strategy to buy up and then spike negative stories during the campaign, testified briefly Monday and will be back on the stand Tuesday in the Manhattan trial.
What to know about Trump’s hush money trial:
Also Tuesday, prosecutors are expected to tell a judge that Trump should be held in contempt over a series of posts on his Truth Social platform that they say violated an earlier gag order barring him from attacking witnesses in the case. Trump’s lawyers deny that he broke the order.
Pecker’s testimony followed opening statements in which prosecutors alleged that Trump had sought to illegally influence the 2016 race by preventing damaging stories about his personal life from becoming public, including by approving hush money payments to a porn actor who alleged an extramarital sexual encounter with Trump a decade earlier. Trump has denied that.
“This was a planned, long-running conspiracy to influence the 2016 election, to help Donald Trump get elected through illegal expenditures to silence people who had something bad to say about his behavior,” prosecutor Matthew Colangelo said. “It was election fraud, pure and simple.”
Former president Donald Trump, center, awaits the start of proceedings at Manhattan criminal court, Monday, April 22, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura, Pool)
A defense lawyer countered by attacking the integrity of the onetime Trump confidant who’s now the government’s star witness.
“President Trump is innocent. President Trump did not commit any crimes. The Manhattan district attorney’s office should not have brought this case,” attorney Todd Blanche said.
The opening statements offered the 12-person jury — and the voting public — radically divergent roadmaps for a case that will unfold against the backdrop of a closely contested White House race in which Trump is not only the presumptive Republican nominee but also a criminal defendant facing the prospect of a felony conviction and prison.
The case is the first criminal trial of a former American president and the first of four prosecutions of Trump to reach a jury. Befitting that history, prosecutors sought from the outset to elevate the gravity of the case, which they said was chiefly about election interference as reflected by the hush money payments to a porn actor who said she had a sexual encounter with Trump.
“The defendant, Donald Trump, orchestrated a criminal scheme to corrupt the 2016 presidential election. Then he covered up that criminal conspiracy by lying in his New York business records over and over and over again,” Colangelo said.
Trump faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business records — a charge punishable by up to four years in prison — though it’s not clear if the judge would seek to put him behind bars. A conviction would not preclude Trump from becoming president again, but because it is a state case, he would not be able to pardon himself if found guilty. He has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.
The case brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg revisits a years-old chapter from Trump’s biography when his celebrity past collided with his political ambitions and, prosecutors say, he scrambled to stifle stories that he feared could torpedo his campaign.
Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump sits in the courtroom at his criminal trial at Manhattan state court in New York, Monday, April 22, 2024. (Brendan McDermid/Pool Photo via AP)
The opening statements served as an introduction to the colorful cast of characters that feature prominently in that tawdry saga, including Stormy Daniels, the porn actor who says she received the hush money; Cohen, the lawyer who prosecutors say paid her; and Pecker, who prosecutors say agreed to function as the campaign’s “eyes and ears.”
In his opening statement, Colangelo outlined a comprehensive effort by Trump and allies to prevent three separate stories — two from women alleging prior sexual encounters — from surfacing during the 2016 presidential campaign. That undertaking was especially urgent following the emergence late in the race of a 2005 “Access Hollywood” recording in which Trump could be heard boasting about grabbing women sexually without their permission.
“The impact of that tape on the campaign was immediate and explosive,” Colangelo said.
Within days of the “Access Hollywood” tape becoming public, Colangelo told jurors that The National Enquirer alerted Cohen that Daniels was agitating to go public with her claims of a sexual encounter with Trump in 2006.
“At Trump’s direction, Cohen negotiated a deal to buy Ms. Daniels’ story to prevent American voters from hearing that story before Election Day,” Colangelo told jurors.
But, the prosecutor noted, “Neither Trump nor the Trump Organization could just write a check to Cohen with a memo line that said ‘reimbursement for porn star payoff.’” So, he added, “they agreed to cook the books and make it look like the payment was actually income, payment for services rendered.”
Those alleged falsified records form the backbone of the 34-count indictment against Trump. Trump has denied having a sexual encounter with Daniels.
Blanche, the defense lawyer, sought to preemptively undermine the credibility of Cohen, who pleaded guilty to federal charges related to his role in the hush money scheme, as someone with an “obsession” with Trump who cannot be trusted. He said Trump had done nothing illegal when his company recorded the checks to Cohen as legal expenses and said it was not against the law for a candidate to try to influence an election.
Blanche challenged the notion that Trump agreed to the Daniels payout to safeguard his campaign, characterizing the transaction instead as an attempt to squelch a “sinister” effort to embarrass Trump and his loved ones.
“President Trump fought back, like he always does, and like he’s entitled to do, to protect his family, his reputation and his brand, and that is not a crime,” Blanche told jurors.
Former president Donald Trump leaves Trump Tower on his way to Manhattan criminal court, Monday, April 22, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Stefan Jeremiah)
The efforts to suppress the stories are what’s known in the tabloid industry as “catch-and-kill” — catching a potentially damaging story by buying the rights to it and then killing it through agreements that prevent the paid person from telling the story to anyone else.
Besides the payment to Daniels, Colangelo also described arrangements to pay a former Playboy model $150,000 to suppress claims of a nearly yearlong affair with the married Trump. Colangelo said Trump “desperately did not want this information about Karen McDougal to become public because he was worried about its effect on the election.”
He said jurors would hear a recording Cohen made in September 2016 of himself briefing Trump on the plan to buy McDougal’s story. The recording was made public in July 2018. Colangelo told jurors they will hear Trump in his own voice saying: “What do we got to pay for this? One-fifty?”
Pecker is relevant to the case because prosecutors say he met with Trump and Cohen at Trump Tower in August 2015 and agreed to help Trump’s campaign identify negative stories about him.
He described the tabloid’s use of “checkbook journalism,” a practice that entails paying a source for a story.
“I gave a number to the editors that they could not spend more than $10,000” on a story without getting his approval, he said.
___
Tucker reported from Washington.
___
Follow the AP’s coverage of former President Donald Trump at https://apnews.com/hub/donald-trump.
News
Read an FBI agent’s email about the impending arrest of Jeffrey Epstein
From: To:
Subject: RE: Subject possibly flying into Teterboro
Date: Fri, 05 Jul 2019 17:10:55 +0000
Importance: Normal
Attachments: 19 Cr._490_Epstein_Arrest Warrant_(002).pdf
“
Hi all,
We received a hit notification that our sub will be landing at Teterboro at 1720 tomorrow, 7/6/2019. I’ve attached a copy of the arrest warrant. Identifiers are below.
Sub: Jeffrey Epstein
DOB: 1/20/1953
Tail #: N212JE
Thank you for your assistance with this. Please let me know if there is anything else you’d need. We’d like to plan to meet at Teterboro around 3:30pm to be there early in case of an earlier landing.
Thanks again,
SA
FBI New York
VCAC/Human Trafficking
C:
From:
[mailto:
Sent: Monday, July 01, 2019 11:28 AM
To:
Cc:
Subject: RE: Subject possibly flying into Teterboro
Good morning all,
Please let me know as soon as you’re aware of his pending arrival/departure from Teterboro. In dealing with private/charter aircraft notifications, our systems don’t always identify a specific subject correctly.
My pleasure,
From:
Sent: Monday, July 1, 2019 11:18 AM
To:
Cc:
Subject: Re: Subject possibly flying into Teterboro
EFTA00038049
News
As Luigi Mangione’s lawyers head to court, support grows for the accused ‘vigilante’
A mural of Luigi Mangione, who is charged with killing the CEO of UnitedHealthcare in 2024 in New York, was painted in the Bethnal Green area of London, England. Prosecutors describe Mangione as a ruthless murderer, but the 28-year-old has also drawn support and praise around the world.
Leon Neal/Getty Images
hide caption
toggle caption
Leon Neal/Getty Images
NEW YORK — As Luigi Mangione’s team of attorneys heads back to state court in Manhattan this week for a key pretrial hearing, public support for the 28-year-old continues to grow.
Some legal experts say Mangione’s populist appeal, fueled in part by what many describe as his Instagram-ready good looks, could complicate state and federal trials.
“The concern you have as a prosecutor is that public support is going to make it into the jury room,” said Richard Schoenstein, a legal analyst and defense attorney.
Mangione is accused of stalking and murdering Brian Thompson, age 50, a health insurance executive and father of two, on a Manhattan street in 2024. Mangione has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

His crowd-sourced legal defense fund now tops $1.5 million, with more than 42,000 donors. According to a pro-Mangione website created by volunteers, he has also received nearly 7,000 personal letters from dozens of countries around the world.
Gary Galperin, a former assistant district attorney in New York County who teaches at Cardozo School of Law, agrees jury selection will be challenging because of Mangione’s popularity.
“You may come to find that one or more jurors who seemed [unbiased] harbor views that could derail the deliberations,” he said.
A CEO’s killing, the rise of a folk hero
Supporters of Luigi Mangione raise signs outside Manhattan federal court on Jan. 9 in New York.
Yuki Iwamura/AP
hide caption
toggle caption
Yuki Iwamura/AP
Another risk, say Schoenstein, Galperin and others, is that some jurors could come to see Mangione’s state and federal trials as a referendum on the costly, frustrating and often inaccessible U.S. healthcare system.

According to federal prosecutors, a notebook kept by Mangione “contained several handwritten pages that express hostility towards the health insurance industry and wealthy executives in particular.”
Mangione’s writings allegedly included a plan to “wack” an insurance company CEO.
Schoenstein thinks many Mangione supporters are so outraged by U.S. healthcare that they view his alleged violence as a legitimate political statement.
“There definitely are people out there who assume this defendant committed the crime, but support him in doing so,” he said.
Evan Clarkson, an assistant professor at Utah Valley University who has studied the phenomenon of Mangione’s popular support, says he began his research after many of his students told him they felt “conflicted” about Mangione’s alleged crimes.
“There are some students who believe he is absolutely a justified vigilante … against this system, the American healthcare system, that they think is unjust.”
Clarkson and other experts think Mangione’s political appeal is being further fueled by the fact that he’s young and photogenic.
Images of Mangione shirtless have gone viral on social media platforms. His fans have written poetry and songs about him and flooded the prison where he’s detained with photographs.
Luigi Mangione, accused of killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, attends a court hearing on May 18 to rule on the admissibility of evidence and setting of trial date in New York.
Jeenah Moon/pool photo/AFP via Getty Images
hide caption
toggle caption
Jeenah Moon/pool photo/AFP via Getty Images
“He’s hot — and our [research] paper does talk about the role of his physical attractiveness,” Clarkson said, noting that views expressed about Mangione’s appearance are a “powerful predictor of people’s attitudes about him.”
Daniel Byman, an expert on domestic political violence in the U.S. at Georgetown University and a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, agrees Mangione’s physical appearance is a significant factor.
He compares Mangione’s relatively broad cultural support to that of Cuban revolutionary Che Guevara.
“Che Guevara was a very bloody revolutionary and yet his poster was on dorm room walls,” Byman said. “Mangione [like Guevara] is a good-looking guy.”
Mangione’s legal team declined to be interviewed for this story, but in a statement posted on a website they created to communicate with supporters, his attorney, Karen Friedman Agnifilo, rejected the idea that her client espoused political violence.
State trial scheduled to begin in September
In a separate statement, Mangione himself, currently behind bars at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, acknowledged the personal connection many of his supporters feel.
Luigi Mangione, a suspect in the fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, is escorted by police on Dec. 19, 2024, in New York.
Pamela Smith/AP
hide caption
toggle caption
Pamela Smith/AP
“I am overwhelmed by — and grateful for — everyone who has written me to share their stories and express their support,” Mangione said in the undated post.
It’s unclear how the political and cultural currents surrounding Mangione will play out in court.
His team has won significant legal victories. Last September, a state judge tossed out terrorism charges filed against Mangione. Earlier this year, a federal judge ruled that Mangione won’t face the death penalty.
But prosecutors have also won key rulings, including a decision last month by state Judge Gregory Carro to allow crucial pieces of evidence to be presented at trial.
“I found that ruling, at the end of the day, to be a compelling win for the prosecutors,” said Schoenstein, the legal analyst. “The gun, the silencer and the notebook [which allegedly belonged to Mangione] are all coming into evidence. It seems like a very strong case for the prosecution.”
The state trial is scheduled to begin in early September, with the federal trial delayed to next year. In a comment left online, while donating $5,000 to Mangione’s legal fund, one supporter made it clear they see the upcoming trials as political persecution.
“I am disturbed by what the government is doing to you,” the donor wrote. “For them, it was and always will be about protecting the 1%. Head up, Luigi. We are right here with you.”
If found guilty on the remaining charges, Mangione could face life in prison without the possibility of parole.
News
Read Will Scharf’s Confidential Insurrection Act Memo
to “indirect assistance” or “permissible direct assistance.” Among these, most notably, are statutes dealing with transnational organized crime and international counterdrug efforts.
3. The Insurrection Act
A. Statutory Provisions
The most far-reaching legal exceptions to the Posse Comitatus Act, though, fall within the Insurrection Act. The Insurrection Act, 10 U.S.C. §§251-255, originally enacted in 1807, is a statute that, when invoked, provides the President with extraordinary powers to use the military in several distinct domestic contexts, if the President first “by proclamation” orders “the insurgents to disperse”:
First, in the event of an insurrection in any state against its government, the President, at the request of a state legislature or governor, can use the military to suppress the insurrection. 10 U.S.C. § 251.
Second, in the event that unlawful acts “make it impracticable to enforce the laws of the United States in any State by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings,” the President can use the military to enforce the law and suppress the rebellion. 10 U.S.C. § 252.
Third, in the event of “any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy” that makes enforcing the law impossible, or that results in any class of people being deprived of their rights, and which state authorities are unable or unwilling to resolve, the President can use the military to resolve the insurrection. 10 U.S.C. § 253(1).
And lastly, wherever any such “insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy… opposes or obstructs the execution of the laws of the United States or impedes the course of justice under those laws,” the President may use the military to resolve the insurrection. 10 U.S.C. § 253(2).
B. Implications and Usage
While § 251 is cabined by the requirement for a request from state officials, the § 252 and § 253 authorities are incredible broad, allowing for essentially unbounded use of the military in any state, with or without state consent or acquiescence, with the only predicate being a Presidential proclamation declaring that an insurrection exists.
Many Presidents have invoked the Insurrection Act throughout American history. Abraham Lincoln invoked the Insurrection Act at the outset of the Civil War (indeed, the prosecution of the Civil War can be viewed as one long deployment of the military under the Act). Ulysses S. Grant similarly invoked the Insurrection Act during his suppression of the first Ku Klux Klan in the 1870s. In the late 1800’s, the Insurrection Act was invoked on a number of occasions to deal with labor strife. And perhaps most notably in recent history, three Presidents invoked the
3
-
Arizona3 minutes agoArizona State Fair adds Becky G, The Offspring to 2026 concert lineup
-
Arkansas10 minutes agoArkansas baseball has 9 affiliated players selected for MLB Draft Combine | Whole Hog Sports
-
California13 minutes ago8 people killed in B-52 bomber crash at California base, officials confirm
-
Colorado18 minutes agoWildland paramedics in Colorado mountains train to protect firefighters on duty
-
Connecticut25 minutes agoCould a big bridge link CT and Long Island?
-
Delaware27 minutes agoUtility costs are ‘crushing’ in Delaware. What leaders are doing about it
-
Florida33 minutes agoSouth Florida’s top deals: Waterfront Belle Meade home trades for $9M
-
Georgia40 minutes agoArkansas baseball adds All-Sun Belt third baseman Wills Maginnis from Georgia State | Whole Hog Sports