"In Manhattan, facing nearly three dozen felonies, Donald Trump’s thin veneer of competence is being stripped away by a guy named Pecker..." has got to be one of the best lines I've ever read...

This is explosive and damaging stuff moment by moment.

simultaneously. So hard to choose.

Was catching and killing McDougal's story an effort to influence the 2016 election? Pecker says yes.

Prosecutors just struck at the heart of their argument that the purchase of Karen McDougal’s story was an improper effort to influence the 2016 election.

Asked if Pecker ever had an intention of printing her story, he said “no.”

Asked if his purpose was to bury her story to prevent it from influencing the election, Pecker said it was.

And asked if he knew it violated campaign finance laws to coordinate with a presidential candidate to make a payment in service of the campaign, Pecker replied that he did.

“Why did AMI make this purchase of Karen McDougal’s story?" prosecutor Joshua Steinglass asked.

“We purchased the story so it wouldn’t be published by any other organization,” Pecker said.

Asked if Pecker ever reported the McDougal payment to the FEC, Pecker said he didn’t.

“And why did you want that?” Steinglass asked.

Pecker replied:
“We didn’t want the story to embarrass Mr. Trump or embarrass or hurt the campaign.”

When I checked, that's what it looked like.

Pecker to continue his testimony. Prosecution has a few more hours, then the defense will cross examine him tomorrow.

This was the first full day of testimony. Trump will have been there for 8 hours by the end of the day.

I've been in the kitchen for the last few hours, so appreciate the update.

This is going to be a lot of testimony.

Was on the road

the coolest part of the prosecution's questioning was "Was there ever, ever at any point, any
mention of Melania?" Pecker: "No."

Right there in front of his friend. The whole court was like WOW.