Former President Donald Trump reportedly flashed a rare smile during the seventh day of his hush-money criminal trial in New York City.
Trump, who has pleaded not guilty to 34 felony charges of falsifying business records in the Empire State, took part in a moment of mirth after witness David Pecker, former publisher of the National Enquirer, recalled a Trump Tower meeting in early 2017, according to CNN.
Pecker reportedly said that Trump had referred to him as a person who “probably knows more than anybody else in this room” in a meeting attended by then-FBI Director James Comey and future Trump administration officials Reince Priebus, Mike Pompeo and Sean Spicer.
Trump and his lawyer Todd Blanche were among a smattering of those present who laughed in response to the remark, according to CNN, which Pecker said the former president had made “as a joke.”
Win McNamee
The Trump administration officials were present at the 2017 meeting to brief Trump on a recent shooting in Florida. Pecker said the following of their response to Trump’s joke at the time: “Unfortunately they didn’t laugh.”
Newsweek reached out for comment to Trump’s office via email on Thursday.
Newsweek reporter Katherine Fung was present at the trial in Manhattan on Thursday but did not specifically see Trump smiling, although she noted that Pecker’s story had earned “chuckles from the courtroom.”
While the former president, who claims that all of his legal woes are part of a politically motivated “witch hunt,” has had little to smile about during his ongoing trial, Thursday was not the first time that he has grinned in court.
During the proceedings a week earlier, Trump chuckled after a prospective juror described a close encounter with him and his ex-wife Marla Maples, the mother of their daughter Tiffany Trump.
The jury candidate, who was later dismissed by Trump’s legal team with a peremptory strike, elicited laughter from the former president after she recalled once seeing the couple “shopping for baby things.”
Over three days of testimony this week, Pecker, the trial’s first witness, described manufacturing negative and false tabloid stories about Trump’s political rivals while suppressing negative Trump stories during the 2016 presidential election.
Pecker said in court on Thursday that he has “no ill will at all” toward the former president and still considers Trump to be his “mentor” and “a friend.” Trump praised Pecker for his “amazing testimony” after leaving the courtroom, while having described him as “a very nice guy” earlier in the day.
The trial on Thursday was not an entirely jovial affair, however, with the courtroom erupting into shouting at one point after Trump lawyer Emil Bove almost revealed the name of a person who was supposed to remain anonymous.
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.