It has been noted that David Pecker, the former publisher of the National Enquirer, testified at Donald Trump’s trial on Tuesday that the tabloid completely manufactured a negative story in 2016 about the father of Sen. Ted Cruz, of Texas, who was then Trump’s rival for the GOP presidential nomination via NBC News.
The paper had published a photo that allegedly showed Cruz’s father, Rafael Cruz, with Lee Harvey Oswald handing out pro-Fidel Castro pamphlets in New Orleans in 1963, not long before Oswald assassinated President John F. Kennedy.
It has been noted that Trump repeatedly referred to the story on the campaign trail and in interviews.
“I mean, what was he doing — what was he doing with Lee Harvey Oswald shortly before the death? Before the shooting?” Trump said in an interview with Fox News in May 2016. “It’s horrible.”
Manhattan prosecutor Joshua Steinglass questioned Pecker about the story’s origins during the trial Tuesday in Manhattan. Pecker said that then-National Enquirer editor-in-chief Dylan Howard and the tabloid’s research department got involved, and Pecker indicated that they faked the photo that was the foundation for the story.
“We mashed the photos and the different picture with Lee Harvey Oswald. And mashed the two together. And that’s how that story was prepared — created I would say,” Pecker said on the witness stand.
When asked by Steinglass whether Cruz had gained popularity in the presidential race at the time, Pecker said, “I believe so.”
The disclosure came up as the prosecution were focusing on negative articles that were published by the tabloid about Trump’s Republican opponents at the time. Pecker explained that it was Michael Cohen, Trump’s personal lawyer, who would orchestrate the planting of these stories.
Pecker said Cohen would call and say they’d like his publication to run an article on a certain candidate, adding that Cohen would then send him a piece about Cruz, for example, and the National Enquirer “would embellish it from there.”
According to Pecker, the negative stories about Trump’s political opponents were published as part of a deal that was made during a meeting at Trump Tower in 2015. It was also agreed that positive stories about Trump would be written.
Steinglass submitted National Enquirer headlines from the 2016 presidential race as evidence, which targeted Senator Marco Rubio from Florida. The headlines suggested that Rubio had a love child and a connection to cocaine.
Asked why the tabloid ran stories about the senators and candidate Ben Carson, Pecker said, “After the Republican debates, and based on the success that some of the other candidates had, I would receive a call from Michael Cohen, and he would direct me and direct Dylan Howard which candidate and which direction we should go.”
