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Trump trial to continue with third day of testimony by witness David Pecker
Former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker is expected to continue testifying Thursday in Donald Trump’s New York criminal trial, his third day on the stand.
Court is set to reconvene at 9:30 a.m. to resume proceedings and will overlap with another significant legal development for the former president. The Supreme Court is set to hear arguments over whether Trump should be immune from federal prosecution in the case brought by special counsel Jack Smith. The judge overseeing the trial denied Trump’s request to attend the arguments in the capital.
In his testimony on Tuesday, the most recent day of the trial, Pecker described his efforts to use the National Enquirer to bury negative stories about Trump and attack his rivals during the 2016 presidential campaign. Pecker was the chief executive of the Enquirer’s parent company, a role he held until 2020.
Pecker testified that he agreed to be Trump’s “eyes and ears” in 2015 and alert Trump’s attorney, Michael Cohen, to damaging stories that might hurt the campaign. Cohen is now an ardent critic of Trump, and is expected to be prosecutors’ key witness against him.
Jane Rosenberg
Pecker described a tactic called “catch and kill” that he used to buy the rights to stories about Trump, without publishing them, effectively keeping them hidden.
His testimony is expected to continue through much, if not all, of the day’s proceedings Thursday.
Prosecutors allege a $130,000 “hush money” payment Cohen made to the adult film star Stormy Daniels in the days before the election was tied to the “catch and kill” scheme. Trump has pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business records related to reimbursements to Cohen. He has accused Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg of pursuing the case for political gain.
Judge Juan Merchan may also rule Thursday on a motion by prosecutors seeking to hold Trump in contempt for a series of social media and campaign posts they say violated a gag order in the case.
The order limits what Trump can say publicly about many of those involved in the case, including witnesses like Cohen and Daniels.
Merchan held a contentious hearing on the motion Tuesday. Prosecutors have asked him to impose a $1,000 fine for each post and order Trump to take them down.
“His attacks on witnesses clearly violate the order, willfully and flagrantly. The court should now hold him in contempt for each of the 10 posts,” prosecutor Chris Conroy said. “No one is off limits to the defendant. He can attack and seek to intimidate anyone he wants to in service to himself.”
Todd Blanche, an attorney for Trump, argued that his client was responding to political attacks in his posts, and did not believe he was violating the order when reposting or quoting others. The judge seemed unpersuaded, but did not make a ruling immediately.
“Mr. Blanche, you’re losing all credibility. I have to tell you that right now. You’re losing all credibility with the court,” Merchan said at one point.
Christopher Ciccone, an artist and former dancer who was also singer Madonna’s younger brother, has died, his rep Brad Taylor confirmed to CBS News. He was 63.
He died from cancer on Oct. 4, surrounded by his husband, Ray Thacker, Taylor said in a statement.
Born on Nov. 22, 1960, in Pontiac, Michigan, Ciccone was an artist, interior decorator and designer, who began his career as a dancer. He joined the Le Group de La Palace Royale in Ottawa in 1980 before moving to New York two years later to support his older sister’s music career as a backup dancer.
Gary Friedman/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
As Madonna’s career grew, Ciccone became more involved — serving as the art director on his sister’s Blond Ambition World Tour in 1990 and as the tour director for her The Girlie Show in 1993. He also directed music videos for megastars Dolly Parton and Tony Bennett in the 1990s.
His role expanded away from music when Ciccone took on the role of interior designer within the homes his sister owned and occupied in New York, Miami, and Los Angeles.
In 2012, Ciccone released his own shoe line, The Ciccone Collection, at London Fashion Week.
He told CBS News at the time that his goal is to make the brand “accessible to everybody” and not too pricey.
“The great thing about doing shoes is that potentially everyone could have a pair. When you’re doing art, there’s only one,” Ciccone said
Ciccone, who was openly gay, claimed that his sister outed him during her 1991 interview with The Advocate.
Mike Coppola/Getty Images for OUT Magazine
Ciccone released a tell-all autobiography called “Life With My Sister Madonna,” leading to reports that the two had been estranged, but Ciccone told CBS News in 2012 that he was glad he wrote the book.
“I don’t regret any of that,” he said. “I think because of that it sort of led me to this. It gave people an opportunity to think of me as a creative person, as an artist and not just as Madonna’s brother, which is a tag I’m going to wear forever,” Ciccone said in 2012. “But I’m hopeful that at some point it will be Christopher Ciccone first. It’s cool…I’m perfectly happy being what I am.”
The two eventually made up.
“Our relationship is fine as far as I’m concerned,” he told CBS News.
Ciccone and Thacker — a British-born actor — married in 2016.
Ciccone’s death comes fewer than two weeks after the death of his and Madonna’s stepmother, Joan Clare Ciccone, from cancer. His eldest brother Anthony died in 2023.
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