‘Our Girl’: David Pecker Testifies Trump Asked Him For Update on Plot to Keep Playboy Model Silent

The former publisher of the National Enquirer, David Pecker, was on the stand again at Donald Trump’s hush money trial on Thursday and testified under oath that Trump personally asked him how the payments to “our girl” were going.

Pecker, whose infamous tabloid helped cook up fake stories about Trump’s opponents in 2016, was also part of the catch-and-kill scheme to keep damaging stories out of the media during the election.

Pecker told the court that he met with Trump on Jan. 6, 2017, two weeks before his inauguration about the payments to former Playboy model Karen McDougal that concealed their affair from the public.

The Associated Press reported:

Pecker said he was brought into Trump’s office just as Trump was ending a meeting with then-FBI Director James Comey, press adviser Sean Spicer, then-GOP chair Reince Prebius and future Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who were updating Trump on a shooting that day at the Fort Lauderdale airport.

As Pecker recalled it, Trump introduced him to the group of aides as the National Enquirer owner and joked: “He probably knows more than anyone in this room.”

Pecker then said that Trump asked him for an update on “our girl” – referring to McDougal and her silence.

“Pecker said he reassured Trump that McDougal was keeping quiet, and Trump thanked him for handling the matters with McDougal and Dino Sajudin, the former doorman at one of Trump’s buildings who was also paid for his claims,” the AP reported of the testimony.

“He said that the stories were very embarrassing,” Pecker told the court of the conversation.

CNN’s Erin Burnett covered Pecker’s testimony and noted that his account of events makes clear Trump both had a lengthy affair with McDougal and was intent on hiding it from the public for electoral reasons. “That’s why Trump was paying off. They talk about a pecker, talks about a conversation that he had with Trump where Trump says, how’s our girl doing? Referencing Karen McDougal, referring to someone in a way that you would refer to them if you knew them, if you had had an affair with them, if they were your girl.”

Watch the clip above via CNN.