“Unethical behavior”: Sarah Huckabee Sanders knew about Trump hush payments, David Pecker testifies

Former White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, now the governor of Arkansas, was intimately involved in covering up Donald Trump’s extramarital liaisons, former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker testified last week, Politico reported.

According to Pecker, who as testifying in Donald Trump’s Manhattan criminal trial on Friday, Sanders participated in a conference call in which Pecker revealed plans to extend a hush money agreement with Playboy model Karen McDougal, who allegedly had sex with Trump. Hope Hicks, another White House aide, was also on the call, he said.

“They thought that it was a good idea,” Pecker testified.

This is the first time Sanders’ name has been brought up in Trump’s ongoing hush money trial, in which the former president stands accused of falsifying business records to hide payments made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election. Hicks will reportedly testify at a later date.

Sanders’ alleged involvement is “something that I would categorize as unethical behavior,” said former White House deputy press secretary Sarah Matthews, who appeared on MSNBC on Sunday to discuss Trump’s legal woes. Matthews resigned from the Trump administration following the Jan. 6 insurrection.

“To think that two employees of the White House whose salaries are being paid by taxpayer dollars are in cahoots with a media outlet to try to cover up an affair and involved in a hush money payment scheme, and that they had knowledge of this is definitely quite concerning,” Matthews said.