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This is Fresh Air.

I'm Dave Davies.

Since the verdict in Donald Trump's trial in Manhattan was announced, there's been much

discussion of its impact on the election, whether the conviction might be overturned on appeal and other issues.

There's another element to the story that's gotten less attention.

The role that the Me Too Movement and journalists reporting on the efforts to

hide Trump's alleged sexual encounters played in generating the criminal case

against him. Our guest is Ronan Pharaoh, who's reporting on the abuses of movie Mogul Harvey Weinstein, earned a Pulitzer Prize.

Farrow was also one of several reporters who unearthed details of the so-called catch-in-kill program in which owners of the National

Inquirer paid sources with potentially damaging information about Trump for

the exclusive rights to their stories then buried them to protect the then presidential candidate.

The criminal case against Trump grew out of the argument that if the payments to kill the stories

were made to influence the election, they could violate campaign finance laws.

Pharaoh followed the Trump trial closely, and he joins us now to reflect on the meaning of the

events.

Ron and Pharaoh is a contributing writer for the New Yorker and author of the book

Catch and Kill as well as a podcast series and HBO

documentaries, also called Catch and Kill. He's currently producing

documentaries for HBO.

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