Pecker of Pickled Peppers ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️🌻

The Trials of Trump: The NY election interference/hush money trial is off and running. Most of the facts presented by the prosecution during Monday’s opening remarks have been in the public domain for years but even those of us with advanced Trump Derangement syndrome are learning some new implicating tidbits.  For example, prosecutors mentioned that the terms of the scheme to repay Michael Cohen for advancing the “hush” money to porn star Stormy Daniels were memorialized in writing (!) something to be shared in coming days.  Trump’s defense lawyers didn’t introduce anything new in their opening remarks, rather they stuck to the story that Trump did nothing wrong because he’s perfect and everything he did was completely kosher.  Also, despite Trump’s public assertions that he can’t wait to testify on his own behalf, his lawyers didn’t say that he would because he won’t.  After the opening remarks and again yesterday, David Pecker, the former publisher of the National Enquirer, testified about his close relationship with Trump as well as the unprecedented deal that the National Enquirer cut with Trump to help him win the presidency. All reports are that Pecker was credible and that, despite his Trump implicating testimony, including his comments that Trump was a micromanager who paid scrupulous attention to all things financial, he remains a fan of The Donald.  Basically, Pecker described how he, working mostly through Michael Cohen, paid for, and killed negative stories about Trump while promoting negative, mostly facetious stories about his primary opponents, specifically Ted Cruz and Ben Carson and also against his general election opponent Hillary Clinton, all with the intent of smoothing Trump’s path to the White House.  So far Pecker has addressed the $30,000 payment made to the New York doorman who brought forward a story about Trump fathering an out of wedlock child with a housekeeper and the $150,000 paid to Karen McDougal, the Playmate, who had a months long affair with Trump around the time that son Barron was born.  The doorman passed a lie detector test but his story, based on hearsay turned out to be false.  The McDougal story was true and so concerned Trump that he had several direct conversations with Pecker about it.  Though Pecker had previously “caught and killed” stories for other celebrities like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Tiger Woods, he did so in exchange for “exclusive” readership boosting interviews and cover stories that increased his rag’s bottom line. His arrangement with Trump did not financially benefit the National Enquirer, instead it hurt the bottom line because they missed out on stories that would have increased readership while also advancing payments for which the unreliable tightwad Trump failed to provide the promised reimbursement.  When he returns to the stand tomorrow, Pecker is expected to testify that the National Enquirer didn’t directly pay the hush money to porn star Stormy Daniels because Trump failed to reimburse the McDougal payment.  That “stiffing” is the reason that Michael Cohen stepped up to personally advance the Stormy payment out of the proceeds of a home equity loan. Trump then reimbursed Cohen for paying Stormy through a cockamamie scheme devised by CFO Allen Weisselberg and Cohen that mischaracterized the hush money advance as payments for legal services, grossed up to compensate Cohen for his related income taxes, an illegal falsifying of business records done, according to the prosecution, to interfere with the results of the 2016 election, another NYS crime. Two more nails in the criming coffin: Trump wanted to stop the payments to Stormy once he won the election and Pecker’s National Enquirer released the doorman from his onerous confidentiality agreement because once Trump won, there was no longer a reason to keep anything secret.    Pecker, unlike Michael Cohen, avoided prosecution and jail for his part in the criminal scheme only because his better lawyers helped him cut a deal with federal prosecutors first.   And of course, does any of this matter?  Trump only needs one juror to vote with him.  

Teflon: We’re still waiting to hear back from Judge Merchan as to whether Trump will be penalized for violating the gag order that’s supposed to stop him from targeting and besmirching jury members, witnesses and the families of the judge and prosecutors.  Merchan is not happy with Trump, nor is he pleased with his legal team who he warned were “losing their credibility with the court”  for failing to back up their assertions that Trump wasn’t in violation of the gag order that he clearly is and continues to violate.  Trump will probably be fined, but the fines which are limited to $1,000 per violation won’t bother him, he’ll just sell more sneakers, bibles or tap his donors.  Some pundits believe Trump wants to be hauled away to jail, but only for a minute or two, to rev up his base.  A bigly catch 22 for the prosecutors and the judge.  And naturally because Trump gets away with most things, Judge Erdogan ruled that the questionable $175 million bond posted in the NYS financial fraud case is okay though he did impose a few conditions intended to enhance its security.

 

Politics: Yesterday the financial aid package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan passed in the Senate by a vote of 79 to 18. Ten Republicans who’d previously voted against the funding package voted for it this time, including South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham who credited Trump for his support.  That makes no sense but it’s Lindsey so there’s that.   Fifteen Republicans voted with two Democrats and one Independent in opposing the bill. Three Republicans, Senators Tim Scott, Rand Paul, and Tommy Tuberville ducked the vote altogether.   The opposing Republicans included the usual suspects, like JD Vance, Rick Scott, Marco Rubio, Mike Lee, Ron Johnson, and Ted Cruz who either opposed funding Ukraine or refused to vote for anything that didn’t include more border security and also included the increasingly right leaning Wyoming Senator John Barrasso who is a member of Republican leadership.  The opposing Democrats were Oregon’s Jeff Merkley and Vermont’s Peter Welch, the opposing Independent was Vermont’s Independent Bernie Sanders. The three “liberals” voted no to express their opposition to providing aid to Israel.  Both Trump and Biden won yesterday’s Pennsylvania primaries.  However, Trump is still bleeding votes to Nikki Haley who garnered 16.5% of the Republican votes cast.  In contrast Biden lost only 6% to his former opponent Dean Phillips. All of the incumbent House candidates won their primaries, including Summer Lee, a Democratic Squad member, who fended off her challenger.  In other not all that shocking news, George of many names Santos who to date had managed to raise $0 for his run has called off his campaign for the eastern Long Island House seat currently held by Republican Nick LaLota.   

Déjà vu:  The pro-Palestinian/anti-Israel demonstrations on college campuses continue to fester with little resolution in sight.  That could be a big problem for President Biden and the Democrats especially if the demonstrations infect the Democratic convention scheduled to take place in August in Chicago. Visions of 1968 dancing in anyone else’s heads?  And I am not talking sugar plums.

#BringThemAllHomeNow