Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg made a sharp move by putting former National Enquirer chief David Pecker on the stand first to testify at former President Donald Trump's criminal hush money trial, former court staffer and Lawfare correspondent Anna Bower explained on MSNBC Friday.
The reason for that, she said, is that unlike a witness like Michael Cohen, Pecker remains friendly with the former president, and so it is much harder to spin his claims about Trump's alleged "catch and kill" schemes to manipulate the 2016 election as false.
"I wonder if, from the jury's perspective, how meaningful is it that two of his friends are taking the stand to offer, not supportive evidence against him, and also on his wife's birthday, the wife for whom he is lying and creating elaborate scenarios, she's not there. None of the family has been in the courtroom," said anchor Alex Wagner.
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"I think this is a great point, and it is one of the things that made testimony so powerful over the past week," said Bower. "Of course the defense counsel has indicated they are going to attack the credibility of Michael Cohen and Stormy Daniels and portray them as people who are biased and out to get Trump, but with David Pecker, one of the last things he testified to under oath is actually he has very warm feelings for Donald Trump. He called him a mentor figure who helped him in his career. You can tell he had real affection for him."
"This is a guy who is basically a kind of key witness in setting up the scene and giving you the world of this scheme of hush money payments, and yet he is still telling you, I don't harbor any ill feelings toward Donald Trump. I am just here to tell the truth," Bower continued. "That is what, I think, made him such a powerful starting witness."
"With friends like these ... who needs enemies?" Wagner remarked.
Watch the video below or at the link.