Tabloid publisher testifies in Trump trial

A veteran tabloid publisher has testified that he pledged to be Donald Trump’s “eyes and ears” during his 2016 presidential campaign, recounting for a jury how he promised the then-candidate that he would help suppress harmful stories and had even arranged to purchase a doorman’s silence. The testimony from David Pecker was designed to bolster prosecutors’ assertions of a decades-long friendship between Trump and the former publisher of the National Enquirer that culminated in an agreement to give the candidate’s lawyer a heads-up on negative tips and stories so they could be quashed.