From CNN's Jeremy Herb, Lauren del Valle and Kara Scannell in the courthouse
David Pecker said he wanted to clarify how the system between the National Enquirer and Michael Cohen worked.
“When we were preparing an article, we’d communicate what we were doing at the direction of the article from Michael Cohen, and we would also send him the PDFs of the story before it was published,” he testified.
From CNN's Katelyn Polantz
In fewer than two hours on the stand in total, David Pecker already has established crucial key points that are likely important for prosecutors in proving their case to the jury.
Those include:
Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass is now showing David Pecker some of the negative stories about Donald Trump's opponents that the National Enquirer ran.
Among them are:
Pecker said that while they were preparing an article like the one on Cruz, they would communicate with Michael Cohen.
David Pecker is speaking toward the jury. Many of the jurors' heads are turning to look at Pecker as he answers questions and then ping-pong back toward the prosecutor as he asks the next question.
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.
