Sports stars, MSNBC and Fox News anchors, media moguls and casino owners.
A list of Trump Organization contact phone numbers presented in court last week offers an unparalleled glimpse of how Donald Trump moves around the world, rubbing shoulders with the rich, the glamorous and the merely useful.
There’s the smooth-skinned football quarterback, Tom Brady, and the gruff coach who led him to Super Bowl glory, Bill Belichick.
And Fox News hosts like Brett Baier and Sean Hannity, whose late-night shows are where the former president likes to make news by calling in live.
His boss, Rupert Murdoch, is also there, along with sporting icons such as tennis champion Serena Williams and golf great Jack Nicklaus.
There are also more striking reminders of Trump’s past as a New York liberal.
Donald Trump photographed with Serena Williams in 2015 when she teed off at the grand opening of the Tennis Performance Center at Trump National Golf Club in Virginia.
People Exhibit 69b offered a look inside the Trump Rolodex, featuring everyone from media mogul Rupert Murdoch to sports stars like Tom Brady, Bill Belichick and Jack Nicklaus.
MSNBC Morning Joe hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski are on the list, presumably before Trump mocked the female half of the couple as “low-IQ crazy Mika” and claimed she had been “bleeding a lot.” for a facelift.” during a party at his Mar-a-Lago estate.
The extraordinary Rolodex-like list was released in Manhattan criminal court on Friday, as prosecutors try to build their case that Trump falsified business documents to hide a cash payment to porn star Stormy Daniels.
He denies 34 serious crimes of business fraud.
Like everything Trump-related, the case may center on invoices, accounting entries and checks, but the surrounding details shed light on his life in a whirlwind of tabloid press.
Last week, the court heard from David Pecker, former editor of the National Enquirer, and how he offered to seek out women’s kiss-and-tell stories, acting as the “eyes and ears” of Trump’s 2016 campaign.
His testimony offered a wild ride through the golden age of tabloid magazines and checkbook journalism.
On Friday, longtime Trump aide Rhona Graff testified. The big headline was that she once saw Daniels in the reception area of a Trump Tower office.
It also offered insight into Trump’s black book and the celebrity names that fueled his rise to power.
Adult film actress Stephanie Clifford appears in the contact list only under her pseudonym: Stormy. Her number, like others, was redacted when it was published in court.
Karen McDougal’s contact details were released as People’s Exhibit 82 in court on Friday.
Media mogul Rupert Murdoch with Trump at the Trump International Golf Links in Aberdeen, Scotland, in 2016. Murdoch’s contact details were in a file filed in a New York court on Friday.
Tom Brady has explained his relationship with Trump, saying he was excited to play golf at his private club but had not spoken to him in many years.
Last month, golf great Jack Nicklaus presented Trump with the 2024 Most Improved Player award from Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida.
Other names on the list are less surprising: Fox News stalwarts Sean Hannity and Jeanine Pirro.
“Did you enter Mr. Trump’s contacts into a Trump Organization computer program, also called Outlook?” Assistant U.S. Attorney Susan Hoffinger asked.
“Yes, I did,” she replied.
‘Now, did Mr. Trump’s contacts include information like phone numbers and addresses of people in his life he wanted to be able to contact?’
“That’s right,” he said.
That was a necessary legal nicety as the prosecution established his credentials and then presented a series of evidence as evidence. The prosaic titles of People’s Exhibits 69b, 82, and 83 offered no clues to their celebrity content.
Exhibit 69b was a carefully redacted list of numbers for political contacts, including then-Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi and billionaire investor Carl Icahn, casino owner Steve Wynn, sports stars and television celebrities such as Judge Jeanine Pirro.
Graff explained Exhibit 83 in his own words.
“It’s an entry in our contact system for Stormy, Stormy Daniels,” he said. “I think it contains her cell phone number.”
The court heard Friday from Rhona Graff, a longtime Trump aide. Jurors were shown details of the contact file she maintained, including entries for McDougal and Stormy.
Stormy Daniels appears at an event on May 23, 2018 in West Hollywood, California. Trump’s aide just kept in touch with him under the name ‘Stormy’
Exhibit 82 was an entry by Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model who signed a $150,000 deal with the National Enquirer and alleged she had a year-long relationship with Trump.
Other directory entries reflect a pre-politics era when superstars were happy to do a favor for New York’s most famous real estate mogul.
Take groundbreaking tennis icon Serena Williams, for example.
Whether the two exchanged chat messages is anyone’s guess, but her presence in his contacts is a reminder of the moment in 2015 when they traded forehands at the opening of a tennis center at Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Virginia.
He had asked the then world number one to do the first service in the new facilities.
Years later, John McEnroe revealed that Trump, always a showman and promoter, had offered him $1 million to play Williams or his sister Venus in a battle of the sexes. He rejected the offer, he said.
Trump with television producer Mark Burnett while hosting a new show, The Apprentice, in 2003.
Trump made a brief statement after leaving the courthouse Friday after hearing Graff’s testimony.
Other sporting greats include Jack Nicklaus. He endorsed Trump in 2020 and was on hand at the former president’s golf club in West Palm Beach last month to present him with the Most Improved Player award.
And there was the name who may have done more than anyone to put Trump in the White House: Mark Burnett, the British-born television producer who created The Apprentice, and the vehicle that propelled a wisecracking real estate mogul from the outer boroughs of NY. York to prime time and stardom.
Along the way are some of the entertainment media players who have helped keep him in the spotlight: Harvey Levin, founder of TMZ, and Lorne Michaels, creator of Saturday Night Live, who invited Trump to co-host of the show in November 2015 (a lot for some of the cast’s concerns.)
It meant an unpredictable workday for staff in Trump’s orbit, Graff said in his testimony.
“Again, every day was different,” he said.
‘That was part of the reason it was such an unusual place. There wasn’t a typical day, but I usually arrive early in the morning before he arrives. You know, I get his office ready for the day.
The trial resumes Tuesday morning.