Getty Michael Cohen secretly taped Donald Trump discussing paying off a playboy model who claimed she had an affair with the president in 2006.
Michael Cohen, President Trump’s longtime lawyer, secretly taped a conversation with the president two short months before the presidential election in which they discussed paying off a former Playboy model who claimed she had an affair with Trump, according to the New York Times.
According to the New York Times, the F.B.I. seized the recording this year while raiding 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,” the New York Times reports. Prosecutors are trying to find out whether or not the incident would violate campaign finance laws.
Watch @MichaelAvenatti tell @AriMelber in May that he knew “for a fact” Michael Cohen had a tape of Trump: t.co/msu9oEroLb
The fact that the recording exists at all is raising eyebrows regarding Trump’s tactics during the presidential election, and the associates used to “keep aspects of his personal and business life a secret.”
“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,” the New York Times reports.
Rudolph Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer, confirmed with the New York Times that Trump had discussed payments with Cohen on tape, but claimed that the payment was never made. He stated that the tape was less than two minutes long, and didn’t incriminate Trump in any way.
GettyDonald Trump has called the raid on Michael Cohen’s offices a “disgraceful situation.”
“Nothing in that conversation suggests that he had any knowledge of it in advance,” Mr. Giuliani said. He also added that Trump had told Cohen that, if they did make a payment to the model, to write a check instead of paying in cash, so there could be a properly documented paper trail.
“In the big scheme of things, it’s powerful exculpatory evidence,” Mr. Giuliani said.
The former Playboy model, Karen McDougal, claims she had an affair with the president that lasted approximately a year back in 2006. At the time, Melania Trump would have just given birth to their son Barron. McDougal sold her story to the National Enquirer for $150,000 near the end of the presidential election but the tabloid ended up sitting on the story, which kept it from being made public.