‘Compelling’: Ex-Trump Lawyer Says Pecker Doing ‘Very Good Job’ Setting Scene For Trump Hush Money Trial

Former Trump attorney Tim Parlatore told CNN that former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker has done a “very good job” setting the table with his testimony against former President Donald Trump.

Pecker began testifying Monday, then continued to outline his “checkbook journalism” and “catch-and-kill” processes with Trump and Michael Cohen on Tuesday — with more to come Thursday.

Parlatore — who remains a frequent defender of Trump — was a guest on Wednesday’s edition of CNN News Central, during which anchor Kate Bolduan asked him how damaging Pecker’s testimony will be.

While Parlatore said Pecker is an effective table-setter, the prosecution’s real challenge will be connecting Trump directly to the payments:

KATE BOLDUAN: Yeah. Real quick, before I let you go. David Pecker was on the stand for 2.5 hours yesterday. He’ll be back on the stand. He’s expected to be on Thursday. After everything you saw from David Pecker and from the line of questioning from prosecutors, what do you think? What do you think he needs to do or they want him to do come Thursday? How much damage do you think he’s going to do?

TIM PARLATORE: You know, he’s telling a very interesting and compelling story. But everything he’s told so far, you know, while certainly, you know, immoral, while certainly dishonest, is not illegal.

You know, he’s talking about things that are, you know, unfortunately illegal. They are unfortunately, part of campaigns. You know, the idea that people would, you know, pay money to, you know, create false information to make their opponent look bad.

Other campaigns have done that. You know, the Steele dossier is a good example of of that with the so-called Trump tape and everything else. So it is the unfortunate reality.

What they need to do is then tie that to the false business records. And I don’t think that they’re going to be able to do that with this witness. So I think he’s he’s doing a very good job of kind of setting the scene and giving all the background, and he’s going to be able to corroborate a lot of what Michael Cohen said, but it’s not going to get to the ultimate issue.

KATE BOLDUAN: Yeah, we are at the very beginning of prosecutors laying out their case, and we still also hasn’t yet had the defense to come up to give him questions either. So we will see it all.

Watch above via CNN News Central.