New York v. Trump trial enters third week as judge fines Trump for gag order violations

Former President Trump’s trial in Manhattan court will continue to hear testimony regarding Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model, who alleged having an affair with Trump in the early 2000s. 

Trump’s trial revolves around his former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, paying a former pornographic actress, Stormy Daniels, $130,000 to reportedly quiet her claims of an affair with Trump in 2006. Trump has denied having an affair with Daniels. 

Prosecutors allege that the Trump Organization reimbursed Cohen, and fraudulently logged the payments as legal expenses. 

The case will also feature two other payments, including a $30,000 payment to a Trump Tower doorman who claimed that Trump fathered a child out of wedlock with a former housekeeper, and a $150,000 payment through a tabloid publisher to a former Playboy model named Karen McDougal. Trump has also vehemently denied these allegations. 

McDougal claims she had a months-long affair with Trump in 2006, the same year Daniels claims she had a sexual encounter with Trump. In 2016, ahead of the election, she reportedly sought to go public with the story. The former publisher of the National Enquirer, David Pecker, caught wind of the tip and contacted Cohen, Pecker testified earlier last week. 

“What do you think?” Pecker recounted what he said to Trump back in 2016, suggesting Trump buy the story. Trump, however,  said, “I don’t buy any stories.”

“Any time you do anything like this, it always gets out,” Pecker told the court Trump said. 

The Manhattan District Attorney’s office argues that the National Enquirer’s parent company, American Media Inc., assisted Trump ahead of the 2016 election by flagging him on news stories that could have hurt his campaign. 

Prosecutors say Trump and associates employed “catch and kill schemes,” which are understood as tactics used by media and publishing companies to buy the rights of a person’s story with the intention of never publishing its contents.

The court is expected to hear ongoing testimony regarding McDougal in the days to come.