We only recently learned that the publisher of the National Enquirer David Pecker was granted immunity to testify in the Michael Cohen case. The MSM has run with it, adding stress to the lives of Trump supporters, and hope to those of the left.
The MSM suggests that the wagons are circling the President. They say Mr. Pecker has a room filled with records.
Andrew McCarthy writes today in his NRO column that the news of David Pecker’s immunity from prosecution likely has little to do with anything going forward. It was probably aimed at strengthening the Cohen case months ago.
McCarthy writes:Â
There is always a lag between when things happen and when we learn about them through media reports.
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That is important to bear in mind when there are breathless news accounts of the kind that broke on Thursday: the revelation that federal prosecutors in New York granted immunity from prosecution to David J. Pecker, the chairman and CEO of American Media Inc. (AMI) and longtime friend of Donald Trump.
American Media controls the National Enquirer, which was deeply involved in the hush-money payments to two women who allege that they had extramarital liaisons with Donald Trump a dozen years ago and whose silence was purchased when they sought to sell their stories prior to the 2016 election.
Naturally, coming on the heels of Tuesday’s guilty plea by Michael Cohen to campaign-finance offenses arising out of those two transactions, there was frenzied speculation that the investigation is heating up, with the noose tightening around the president.
In reality, there is almost certainly much less here than meets the eye. In short, while we are just now learning that Pecker and his subordinate, Dylan Howard, were granted immunity, this appears to have happened many weeks ago — to be precise, shortly after search warrants were executed in April on the office and residences of Cohen, President Trump’s former lawyer. Back then, prosecutors did not know whether Cohen would fight them or plead guilty.
They needed Pecker and Howard in order to tighten up the case against Cohen, not necessarily to make a case on the president.
Mr. McCarthy feels that the immunity agreements were granted sometime after the searches of Cohen’s residences and place of work. He believes that even though they “are just being reported on now…they appear to have been driven by the prosecutors’ need, three months ago, to shore up their case against Cohen.”
There is nothing right now to indicate the immunity agreements were part of “an ongoing effort”. He said, “The immunity agreements are not a new development.”
BUT THERE’S ANOTHER ANNOUNCED IMMUNITY DEAL
When it comes to the MSM, it’s better to wait and see. We hear these stories and they sound bad, but then they turn out to be untrue or exaggerated.
Since McCarthy wrote his article this morning, we heard of a new immunity deal. An announcement was just made that the CFO of the Trump Organization Allen Weisselberg was also granted immunity by federal prosecutors in New York. It too was given during the course of the Cohen investigation.
The news was first reported Friday by The Wall Street Journal.
Weisselberg was the one who told another Trump organization executive to pay from the trust for legal services.
Since it was paid out during the probe and they provided information we already know, perhaps that’s the entire ball of wax.
The people claiming Trump committed campaign finance violations are Michael Cohen, a known liar, and his lawyer, Hillary’s friend and advisor, Lanny Davis. The MSM is making a lot of assumptions with their anonymous sources who have proven unreliable in the past.
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