A key figure in Donald Trump’s hush money investigation returned

on

Monday to the building where a grand jury has been meeting for months,

a repeated performance

suggesting his testimony could be critical as prosecutors move toward potential criminal charges.

There was no word yet on when the panel would vote on a possible charge against the former president.

David Pecker, a longtime Trump friend and the former CEO of the National Enquirer’s parent company, was back as the grand jury heard testimony favorable to the ex-president for the first time since last Monday. .

The grand jury is now back on the Trump case, according to a person familiar with the case who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss classified proceedings. The ex-president is under investigation for payments made during his 2016 campaign to two women who alleged affairs or sexual encounters with him.

Trump denies involvement

one of the women,

porn actor Stormy Daniels and model Karen McDougal. He claims that he is a victim of extortion.

Among the witnesses has the grand jury

already

heard is Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer and fixer who has said he orchestrated the payouts. Cohen pleaded guilty in 2018 to federal charges stemming from the payments and has become a potentially key witness for prosecutors.

Pecker is seen as relevant to the investigation because his company, American Media Inc., secretly supported Trump’s campaign by paying $150,000 to McDougal in August 2016 for the rights to her story of an alleged affair with Trump. The company then suppressed McDougal’s story until after the election, a dubious journalistic practice known as catch and kill.

Cohen taped a conversation in which he and Trump discussed the arrangement to pay McDougal through the tabloid publisher.

At one point in the recording, Cohen told Trump, I have to open a company for the transfer of all that information about our friend, David, a reference to Pecker.

Cohen told Trump he had already spoken with longtime Trump Organization chief of finance, Allen Weisselberg, about how to set up the whole thing.

Trump then said: what should we pay for this? fifty one?

Cohen also signed an agreement to buy the non-disclosure portion of McDougal’s contract with AMI for $125,000 through a company he founded called Resolution Consultants LLC, but a few months later Pecker told Cohen that the deal fell through and that Cohen never paid the $125,000, according to court documents from Cohen’s criminal case.

Separately, Cohen has admitted to paying Daniels $130,000 to keep her from telling her story to the Enquirer or

some

other media.

Trump has said that he personally, not his company, repaid Cohen.

Federal prosecutors revealed in 2018 that they had agreed not to pursue criminal charges against AMI. Pecker has since stepped down as CEO.

Trump raised expectations that criminal charges were imminent with a March 18 post on his social media platform saying he expected to be arrested last Tuesday. He has since used the lack of an indictment to claim, without presenting any evidence, that the investigation is somehow faltering.

The former Republican president has also escalated his rhetoric, warning that possible death and destruction “would accompany any indictment. He also posted a photo of himself with a baseball bat next to a photo of Dist. Atty. Alvin Bragg, a Democrat. On Thursday, Trump referenced to Bragg, Manhattan’s first black DA, as an animal.

In a memo to staff on Friday, Bragg thanked the nearly 1,600 people for their persistence despite increased press attention and security around our office and said their safety remains the top priority.

We will continue to apply the law evenly and fairly, which each of you do every day, Bragg wrote.

Since then, former federal prosecutors in New York City have rallied to defend Bragg and sign a letter condemning the verbal assaults.

As former prosecutors, we condemn efforts to notify the Manhattan District Attorney and we call on everyone to support and protect prosecutor independence and the rule of law, he said.