National Enquirer’s David Pecker teams up with SDNY to formally accuse Donald Trump of felony
Yet another of Donald Trump’s partners in crime has formally sold him out. Months ago, we all learned that David Pecker, the head of the National Enquirer’s parent company AMI, had been granted immunity in exchange for full cooperation the SDNY’s Michael Cohen case. This strongly implied that Pecker was going to sell out Donald Trump. Sure enough, that just became official.
Even as Michael Cohen was being sentenced to three years in prison today, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York announced that it had reached a non-prosecution agreement with David Pecker and AMI. In the announcement, the SDNY reveals that Pecker and AMI worked “in concert” with Cohen to “ensure that the woman did not publicize damaging allegations about the candidate before the 2016 presidential election.” Pair this with Cohen’s admission that Trump instructed him to work with Pecker on this, and Pecker is formally accusing Trump of a felony. So now what?
This is one of the two felonies that SDNY already implicated Donald Trump for last week. So it’s not that the number of felony counts against Trump has increased, it’s just that another of Trump’s co-conspirators is confirming that Trump committed the felony. People who commit serious crimes don’t get immunity unless they give up a lot on someone more important. Pecker’s non-prosecution agreement requires his continued cooperation on all matters. In other words, Pecker is providing information on a lot more on Trump than just the felony in question.
Today’s announcement about the National Enquirer appears to be the next step in the overall Mueller-SDNY strategy of revealing more about Donald Trump’s crimes every few days, thus gradually giving momentum to the rising national debate about Trump’s ouster. Then the House Democrats take over and begin amplifying it all by holding nationally televised hearings on a daily basis, just as Mueller begins making his – still unknown – endgame moves.
