Longtime Donald Trump fixer-lawyer Michael Cohen “secretly recorded a conversation” with Mr. Trump 2 months before the presidential election in which Trump and Cohen “discussed payments” to former Playboy model Karen McDougal, who claims she had an affair with Trump– according to lawyers and others familiar with the recording who spoke to the New York Times.
Trump can be heard in the recording “urging Cohen to make sure he properly documents the agreement to buy the rights and urges him to use a check — rather than cash — to keep a record of the transaction,” Washington Post reports.
There are MORE recordings Michael Cohen had of the president in his records that were seized by the FBI, according to Rudy Giuliani and a source with knowledge of Cohen’s tapes. @DanaBashCNN @cnnbrk
— AnneClaire Stapleton (@AnneClaireCNN) July 20, 2018
The F.B.I. seized the recording this year during a raid on Mr. Cohen’s office. The Justice Department is investigating Mr. Cohen’s involvement in paying women to tamp down embarrassing news stories about Mr. Trump ahead of the 2016 election. Prosecutors want to know whether that violated federal campaign finance laws, and any conversation with Mr. Trump about those payments would be of keen interest to them.
The recording’s existence further draws Mr. Trump into questions about tactics he and his associates used to keep aspects of his personal and business life a secret. And it highlights the potential legal and political danger that Mr. Cohen represents to Mr. Trump. Once the keeper of many of Mr. Trump’s secrets, Mr. Cohen is now seen as increasingly willing to consider cooperating with prosecutors.
Rudolph W. Giuliani, Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer, confirmed in a telephone conversation on Friday that Mr. Trump had discussed the payments with Mr. Cohen on the tape but said the payment was ultimately never made. He said the recording was less than two minutes and demonstrated that the president had done nothing wrong.
“Nothing in that conversation suggests that he had any knowledge of it in advance,” Mr. Giuliani said, adding that Mr. Trump had directed Mr. Cohen that if he were to make a payment related to the woman, write a check, rather than sending cash, so it could be properly documented.
And yes there is always a tweet.
James Comey better hope that there are no "tapes" of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 12, 2017
Some initial reactions from journalists and analysts worth listening to.
Per @samstein, a live shot of Trump rn https://t.co/T1TfCf7pHD
— Asawin Suebsaeng (@swin24) July 20, 2018
me trying to figure out if the NYT is reporting that Trump was recorded talking with Cohen about AMI's August 2016 hush payment to McDougal, or a separate one pic.twitter.com/6MlZwIznNN
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 20, 2018
Via @DanaBashCNN @GloriaBorger: When informed about the tape, the president said, “I can’t believe Michael would do this with me,” according to a source familiar with the tapes.
— Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) July 20, 2018
18/ Creating a recording of a private conversation with a client that could be privileged–it's hard to know in advance if the conversation will be privileged or not–is reckless and irresponsible to say the client. The New York Bar would likely not look kindly on this practice.
— Renato Mariotti (@renato_mariotti) July 20, 2018
Michael Cohen secretly recorded Trump asking the Russian state for help getting a set of Hillary Clinton’s private server emails, and later the same day the Russians sought to break into the server illegally in accordance with his instructions.
— southpaw (@nycsouthpaw) July 20, 2018
More, via @DanaBashCNN @GloriaBorger: Michael Cohen had other recordings of Trump in his records seized by FBI, per Rudy Giuliani & a source w/knowledge of Cohen's tapes. “Definitely all kinds of tapes out there,” one of the sources said.
— Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) July 20, 2018
It's entirely possible this leak came from Trump's team either to (1) change the topic from Russia and/or (2) go public on their own terms before Cohen could. The timing supports both motives. 1/ https://t.co/QVFquH4tqW
— Eric Columbus (@EricColumbus) July 20, 2018
NEW In secret recording seized by FBI, Trump and Cohen discuss making payments for story of former model who alleged affair with Trump — a deal they never made. Me w/ @postroz https://t.co/ca0YKFRbul
— Carol Leonnig (@CarolLeonnig) July 20, 2018
ABC in April reported that Cohen habitually recorded his conversations with reporters and others to play them for Trump later. https://t.co/qi8XBEs2Je
— southpaw (@nycsouthpaw) July 20, 2018
15/ In any event, it appears Trump is not alleging that the conversation is privileged because his attorney (Rudy Giuliani) discussed the contents of the conversation with @nytimes. That arguably waives privilege, and no attorney would do that if he would later claim privilege.
— Renato Mariotti (@renato_mariotti) July 20, 2018
Breaking: Michael Cohen tape shows Donald Trump's campaign lied about having no knowledge of 'Playboy' model payment https://t.co/PjBokGx7gv pic.twitter.com/lB3cofj9QC
— Newsweek (@Newsweek) July 20, 2018
