Former National Enquirer boss reveals sleazy tactics the tabloid used to protect Donald Trump and smear his rivals

Analysis by Oliver Darcy, CNN

New York (CNN) — Editor’s Note: A version of this article first appeared in the “Reliable Sources” newsletter. Sign up for the daily digest chronicling the evolving media landscape here.

Donald Trump and his allies like to complain at length about imagined “collusion” between the Democratic Party and the media. But on Tuesday, former National Enquirer boss David Pecker lifted the curtain on the actual media collusion that took place in the 2016 election.

Pecker revealed in granular detail how Trump worked hand-in-hand with the infamous national tabloid to boost his candidacy and, perhaps far more importantly, simultaneously smear his political opponents with shameful lies and innuendo.

“I said what I would do is I would run or publish positive stories about Mr. Trump and I would publish negative stories about his opponents,” Pecker said under oath at Trump’s historic hush-money trial in New York. “I said I would be your eyes and ears because I know that the Trump Organization has a very small staff.”

The highly-anticipated court appearance from Pecker, who was granted immunity in exchange for his candid testimony at the trial, put a floodlight on the dark underbelly of the Enquirer, with the tabloid portrayed in open court as a tawdry publication willfully serving as a political weapon for Trump — truth and basic ethics be damned.

Pecker spoke at length about how he worked with former Trump attorney Michael Cohen to “catch and kill” stories that could have damaged the then-candidate, such as former Playboy model Karen McDougal’s allegations of an affair, which the Enquirer paid $130,000 to bury. Pecker said that at the outset of the campaign he believed “there would be a lot of women who would come out to try to sell their stories” about Trump because he was “well known as the most eligible bachelor.”

To that end, Pecker said he served as Trump’s eyes and ears, alerting the then-candidate’s camp to potentially embarrassing stories that hovered on the horizon. In fact, Pecker was so determined to protect Trump that he even purchased a story from Manhattan doorman Dino Sajudin, despite believing it to be bogus. That story, which the Enquirer paid $30,000 for, alleged Trump had fathered an illegitimate child, prompting the tabloid to deploy a team of reporters to chase down the truth. While Pecker eventually determined the story was false, his publication paid five figures for the story anyway.

“If there was any rumors in the marketplace about Mr. Trump or his family or any negative stories that were coming out or things that I heard overall that I would go through, I would call Michael Cohen directly,” Pecker said.

Meanwhile, Pecker worked with Cohen to smear Trump’s Republican rivals in the 2016 primary, including Ben Carson, Ted Cruz, and Marco Rubio. Pecker testified that the Enquirer would “communicate what we were doing at the direction of the article from Michael Cohen,” even sending the then-Trump lawyer PDF copies of the stories in advance.

“He would comment on them, so we would add content based on the information Cohen provided them,” Pecker said.

At times, Pecker said that Cohen went as far as to contact him and direct the Enquirer to attack Trump’s GOP rivals.

“Michael Cohen would call me and say, ‘We would like you to run a negative article on a certain — let’s say for argument sake — on Ted Cruz, then he — Michael Cohen — would send me information about Ted Cruz or Ben Carson or Marco Rubio, and that was the basis of our story and then we would embellish it from there,” Pecker told the courtroom.

When the Enquirer published negative stories about Bill and Hillary Clinton, Pecker said that Trump was elated.

“He was pleased,” Pecker recalled.

The relationship, however, between Trump and Pecker was kept secret from staff. Pecker, who revealed in court he operated a clandestine email account that his assistant did not have access to or know about, said he feared leaks and didn’t want “anyone to know” about the pact he had with Trump. Paranoid about the mutually beneficial relationship making its way to the press, Pecker only told select people about it, including then-top editor, Dylan Howard.

“I told him we’re going to try to help the campaign, and to do that, I want to keep this as quiet as possible,” Pecker said.

While the days of the Enquirer boosting Trump while publishing false and sleazy stories about his opponents are over, the habit remains prevalent in right-wing media. Far more powerful outlets, such as Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News, continue to debase themselves in service of Trump, acting as his propaganda vehicles.

Case in point: While MAGA Media would be apoplectic if President Joe Biden were being tried in criminal court, coverage has been scant and/or bent in favor of Trump in right-wing media. Fox News on Tuesday barely covered the explosive revelations from Pecker. And when the outlet did offer its audience coverage of the trial, it was through an unmistakable pro-Trump lens. Meanwhile, Fox News and other right-wing outlets continue to launch ugly — and often dishonest — attacks on Biden.

As it turns out, there will always be grossly unethical behavior among those in partisan media. And Trump knows precisely how to exploit that fact to his advantage — a reality that the hush-money case is underscoring for the sect of the public not locked in his warped propaganda universe.

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