Why is David Pecker a crucial witness in Donald Trump’s trial? The publisher’s National Enquirer ‘catch and kill’ tactics helped Harvey Weinstein and Arnold Schwarzenegger – but not Jeff Bezos …

May 2, 2024

AMI’s David Pecker (second from right) hosts Playboy’s 50th anniversary celebration in 2010, in New York City. Photo: Getty Images for American Media Inc.

The ex-publisher of National Enquirer, Pecker testified to his 2016 involvement in paying US$150,000 for the rights to Playboy model Karen McDougal’s story of her alleged affair with Trump

The US tabloid also ‘caught and killed’ stories to protect Harvey Weinstein and Arnold Schwarzenegger – but found itself in hot water in 2019 after going up against billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos

He was an ambitious executive who, with a group of investors in 1999, bought American Media Inc. (AMI) – the publisher of tabloid newspaper the National Enquirer, among other titles. But while printing lurid celebrity revelations, David Pecker simultaneously shielded his friends from scrutiny by publishing positive stories about them and negative ones about their opponents, as well as operating a “catch and kill” scheme.

Now, Pecker is back in headlines as the first witness in former president Donald Trump’s current criminal trial, which opened on April 22 in New York. The trial concerns alleged hush-money payments totalling US$130,000 made to adult film star Stormy Daniels in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election.

The New York Times once called Pecker “the keeper of Donald Trump’s secrets”. But the Enquirer protected other powerful men too – including Harvey Weinstein and Arnold Schwarzenegger – and threatened to expose Jeff Bezos’ extramarital affair with his now-fiancée Lauren Sánchez.