Here’s the thing about David Pecker taking Donald Trump down

| 10:30 am EDT April 25, 2024
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We’ve all watched Michael Cohen undergo a gradual and forthright transformation over the years, from former Trump henchman to current do-gooder. He did his prison time. He always testifies honestly and eagerly whenever he’s asked. He wants revenge against Trump, which is understandable, but he also very much wants to do the right thing. You get the sense that he genuinely likes being one of the good guys these days. But this article isn’t about Michael Cohen. It’s about David Pecker.

Trump and Pecker were friends for a long time – or at least what passes for “friends” in the seedy underworld in which they’ve both always operated. Pecker has spent his career fraudulently and viciously ruining people’s lives for corrupt profit, and come to think of it, so has Trump. In that sense they were a perfect match. There wasn’t a moment of hesitation between them once they realized they could strategically run fake stories timed to alter the outcome of the 2016 election cycle at every turn. And it worked.

But Trump and Pecker were also perfectly primed to sell each other out if it ever came to it, and it did. The minute Pecker was informed that he could face criminal prosecution for what he and Trump and Cohen did together, Pecker immediately cut a deal to save his own backside, sending Cohen to prison. And now that Pecker has finally been subpoenaed to testify in Trump’s criminal trial, Pecker isn’t hesitating.

You don’t get the sense that Pecker is getting any enjoyment out of taking Trump down. Nor does Pecker seem to have any hesitation about doing so. It’s simply a transactional move. If Pecker has to give up his “friend” in order to save himself, then that’s just the cost of doing business this week. Pecker is, in effect, pulling a Trump against Trump.

And so Donald Trum