Q. If Donald Trump and David Pecker were such good friends, why did Pecker agree to testify for the prosecution?
A. Pecker testified under a grant of immunity from prosecutors. While he seemed chipper and friendly, Pecker also made clear he believed he and his company had violated election law on Trump’s behalf. When the Federal Election Commission and the FBI came calling, he cooperated to protect himself and his company.
Pecker is not in the same category as Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer who has turned on the former president not only in the legal sense but in the personal sense. For years, Cohen’s antipathy for Trump has been on display on a daily, sometimes hourly, basis. Pecker, by contrast, said he considers Trump a friend but hasn’t spoken to him for several years, largely because of the legal mess the two men are in.
