A defense attorney grilled David Pecker on Friday as part of former President Donald Trump‘s hush money trial in New York and identified an inconsistency in Pecker’s testimony regarding his practice of burying negative stories about public figures.
Pecker, the former CEO of tabloid publisher American Media, Inc., faced questions from Trump attorney Emil Bove about Pecker’s contradictory recollections of whether Trump personally thanked him for suppressing a story in 2016 ahead of the presidential election, according to reports from the courtroom.
Bove asked Pecker about an interview he gave to the FBI in 2018 during which Pecker discussed a process known as “catch-and-kill,” which involved buying rights to stories about high-profile people and then never publishing them.
During a meeting between Pecker and Trump on Jan. 6, 2017, “Trump did not express any gratitude to…
