David Pecker, former publisher of the National Enquirer, He testified at Donald Trump’s trial On Tuesday, the tabloid produced a completely negative story about the father of Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, then Trump’s rival for the 2016 GOP presidential nomination.
The newspaper published a photo of Cruz’s father, Rafael Cruz, showing Lee Harvey Oswald handing out pro-Fidel Castro pamphlets in New Orleans in 1963, shortly before Oswald killed President John F. Kennedy.
Trump repeatedly referred to his story in the election campaign and interviews.
“I mean, what was he doing—what was he doing with Lee Harvey Oswald just before he died? Before shooting?’ “It’s terrible,” Trump said in an interview with Fox News in May 2016.
Manhattan District Attorney Joshua Steinglass asked Packer about the origin of the story during his arraignment in Manhattan on Tuesday. Peker said then-National Enquirer editor-in-chief Dylan Howard and the tabloid’s investigative department got involved, and Peker said they had faked the photo that was the basis of the story.
“We mashed up photos and a different image with Lee Harvey Oswald. And mix the two together. And that’s how this story was made up — I’d say it was made up,” Peker said on the witness stand.
“I believe so,” Packer said when Steinglass asked if Cruz was gaining popularity in the presidential race at the time.
The disclosure came as the prosecution pointed to negative articles published by the tabloid about Trump’s Republican rivals at the time. Packer explained that Trump’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, will arrange the planting of these stories. Cohen would call and say they wanted his publication to run an article about a particular candidate, Peker said, adding that Cohen would then send him a piece about Cruz, which the National Enquirer, for example, would “embellish it from there.”
Peker suggested that Trump was directly involved in the process. He said the negative stories about Trump’s opponents were published as part of a 2015 regulation at a Trump Tower meeting that included a directive to write positive stories about the real estate mogul.
Steinglass also attested to National Enquirer headlines published during the 2016 race about Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., who is also running for president. They suggested he had a love child and was involved with cocaine.
Asked why the tabloid ran stories about senators and candidate Ben Carson, Packer said, “After the Republican debates and based on the success of some of the other candidates, I would get a call from Michael Cohen and he would refer me. and Dylan Howard guides which candidate and which direction we should go.”
Asked for his response Tuesday, Cruz told NBC News that he was “not interested in revisiting ancient history.”
Rubio’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
When the story about Cruz’s father was published, the senator told reporters Trump said he was a “pathological liar” after promoting the story.
“He doesn’t know the difference between truth and lies,” he said. “He lies almost every word that comes out of his mouth. In an example I think is right out of a psychology textbook, his response is to accuse everyone of lying.”
Adam Reiss, Gary Grumbach , Jillian Frankel and Sahil Kapoor contributed.