(ASSOCIATED PRESS) As Donald Trump was running for president in 2016, his old friend at the National Enquirer was scooping up potentially damaging stories about the candidate and paying out tens of thousands of dollars to keep them from the public eye.

But when it came to the seamy claims by porn performer Stormy Daniels, David Pecker said he put his foot down.

“I am not paying for this story," he told jurors Thursday at Trump’s hush money trial, recounting his version of a conversation with Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen about the catch-and-kill scheme that prosecutors alleged amounted to interference in the race. Pecker was already $180,000 in the hole on other Trump-related stories by the time Daniels came along. “I didn't want to be involved in this from the beginning.”

Pecker's testimony was a critical building block for the prosecution’s theory that their partnership was a way to illegally influence the 2016 presidential election. Prosecutors are seeking to elevate the gravity of the history-making first trial of a former American president and the first of four criminal cases against Trump to reach a jury.

But the hush money trial was just one of the consequential legal matters facing the Republican presidential candidate on Thursday.

The U.S. Supreme Court also heard arguments over whether Trump should be immune from prosecution in a federal case over his efforts to reverse his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden. The high court justices appeared likely to reject his immunity claim.

In other legal woes, the hush money case includes a looming decision on whether he violated a gag order and should be held in contempt. His former lawyers and associates were indicted in a 2020 election-related scheme in Arizona. And a New York judge rejected a request for a new trial in a defamation case that found Trump liable for $83.3 million in damages.

But Trump has a long history of emerging unscathed from sticky situations — if not becoming even more popular. The high court arguments made it seem possible that he could benefit from a lengthy trial delay, possibly beyond November’s election.

It was an unusual confluence politically, too, as the Trump started the day campaigning at a Manhattan construction site before heading to court, while the Supreme Court was hearing 2020-related issues.As Donald Trump was running for president in 2016, his old friend at the National Enquirer was scooping up potentially damaging stories about the candidate and paying out tens of thousands of dollars to keep them from the public eye.

But when it came to the seamy claims by porn performer Stormy Daniels, David Pecker said he put his foot down.

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