From CNN's Jeremy Herb, Lauren del Valle and Kara Scannell in the courthouse
David Pecker testified that Michael Cohen told him that he "wasn't part of the campaign" and instead was "on the outside" as Donald Trump's personal attorney.
However, Pecker said said Cohen seemed to have an informal role in the campaign, or he "injected himself into it."
"Michael was physically in every aspect of whatever the campaign was working on, at least at Trump Organization at Trump Tower, at least when he was physically there," Pecker said.
David Pecker is explaining how Michael Cohen played a role in the negative stories that the National Enquirer ran about Trump's political opponents.
"Michael Cohen would call me and say, 'We would like you to run a negative article on a certain' — let’s say for argument sake — on Ted Cruz then he — Michael Cohen — would send me information about Ted Cruz or Ben Carson or Marco Rubio, and that was the basis of our story and then we would embellish it from there," he testifies.
The jury is now seeing a series of National Enquirer articles praising Donald Trump.
Per a defense request, Judge Juan Merchan instructed the jury that the exhibit is being entered for the limited purpose of showing that the articles were published and when — but they are not in evidence for any other purpose.
Prosecutors are scrolling through a series of headlines from the National Enquirer.
Among them: "Donald Trump: 'Healthiest individual ever elected!"
David Pecker said leaks were "more prevalent" in the organization, and so he didn't want "anyone else to know" about the agreement he had with Donald Trump.
"So that’s why I kept it very confidential," Pecker said.
Donald Trump is leaning forward to look at the screen in front of him as prosecutors introduce headlines and covers from the National Enquirer as evidence to show David Pecker.
David Pecker testified that at the time, he told Dylan Howard, who was the editor in chief of the National Enquirer, that "the agreement that I made has to be highly, highly confidential."
"I told him we’re going to try to help the campaign, and to do that, I want to keep this as quiet as possible," Pecker says.
David Pecker said his agreements with Trump were not put into writing because “it was just an agreement among friends."
Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass also had Pecker confirm that the positive stories about Trump were of mutual benefit, but stopping stories from being printed about Trump only benefited the campaign.
Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass asked David Pecker if he ever purchased a story about Donald Trump in order for it not to be printed prior to the August 2015 meeting with Trump and Cohen in Trump Tower.
"Ah no," Pecker said.
"Did that part help the National Enquirer at all?"
Pecker replied, "No, that didn’t help."
