Trump used White House to manage blowback from Karen McDougal allegations, tabloid boss testifies

Donald Trump is accused of helping to bury a story that he had a nearly one-year-long affair with a former Playboy model, in order to secure his election to the presidency in 2016.

But he continued to keep tabs on the story and Karen McDougal’s contractual agreement to keep quiet through at least his first year in office, according to testimony from former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker, who claimed to buy her silence.

Mr Pecker allegedly purchased exclusive lifetime rights to Ms McDougal’s affair claims for $150,000 in 2016 with no intention of publishing the story. Instead, he was tasked with killing the story to support Mr Trump’s election chances, he testified in the former president’s hush money trial on Thursday.

The contract was part of an alleged “catch and kill” scheme Mr Pecker arranged with Mr Trump and his then-personal attorney Michael Cohen in 2015 to identify politically compromising stories and buy the rignts to them during his 2016 campaign.

Mr Trump is criminally charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records for allegedly falsely covering up payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels as “legal expenses” after she claimed to have had an affair with him in 2006. He has pleaded not guilty and denies the affair.

According to Mr Pecker’s testimony in a Manhattan courtroom on Thursday, after taking office, Mr Trump his position in the White House to manage blowback from the scheme.

Mr Pecker recalled in court a time when then-president-elect asked him “how’s our girl?” during a meeting at Trump Tower in January 2017, making an apparent reference to Ms McDougal.

He also thanked him for handling Ms McDougal’s “situation,” and said the story “would be very embarrassing … to him, his family and