Trump’s hush money trial to hear opening arguments

2015 and the birth of a presidential campaign. Two months after Donald Trump descended the escalators of Trump Tower, his lawyer Michael Cohen hatched a plan with the boss of American media, David Pecker. It’s now known as the catch and kill scheme. It’s basically buying a story off the market with the intention to bury it to benefit someone. And in this case, it was Donald Trump. In the lead up to the 2016 US election, their publication, the National Enquirer, A tabloid with enormous reach, published detrimental stories about Trump’s political rivals. At that time, Victorian Lachlan Cartwright was American Media’s executive editor. He landed the job through another Australian journalist, Dylan Howard, the editor in chief. Week in, week out we were running stories like Hillary’s Months to Live. Those covers were weaponised. But it’s the three salacious stories that didn’t make it to print that are now at the heart of Donald Trump’s criminal trial. We had a tip to our tip line from a doorman at Trumpwell Tower who said that Trump had a love child. But before he could establish whether the story was true or not, the order came down from David Pecker to pay the doorman $30,000 and we couldn’t proceed with any further reporting. In August of 2016, Dylan Howard met with another woman claiming an alleged affair with Trump. David Pecker had made a decision to pay her $150,000 and that the story would never see the the light of day. Howard gave evidence last year that was used by prosecutors to convince a grand jury to indict the former presidents, allegedly working with Michael Cohen and the lawyer of Stormy Daniels to buy the adult film star’s story of an alleged affair with Donald Trump in 2006. Howard is not facing charges. He could be called to give evidence as a witness in the weeks to come, his lawyer told 9 News Mr. Howard has no comment on whether he will testify. His limited role in the matters at issue has been extensively documented, albeit often misrepresented. In his final days at AM is New York office, Cartwright began leaking what he knew about his employer to other media outlets. When did you realise the scope of this catch and kill scam? As I’m reading the indictment, I’m looking through it and then I see Dino the doorman and and this pattern of of payments that were going on. He’s now going on record telling all. Despite living under the constant threat of litigation. As a journal, it’s a cracking yarn and it’s a a story of of national importance, how this media organization became a propaganda tool, a protection racket for the rich and powerful. Loughlin’s career has moved on. He’s now the special correspondent for The Hollywood Reporter and in A twist, he’s covering America’s first presidential trial from this courtroom with direct insights into the catch and kill scheme. It’s a story about a bloke making a piss poor decision, regretting it and and trying to do his best in that moment to set things right.