Michael Cohen Secretly Taped Trump Discussing Payment to Playboy Model
US President Donald Trump was secretly taped two months before the 2016 election discussing payments to a former Playboy model, with whom he allegedly had an affair.
The tape was made by his longtime lawyer Michael Cohen, who no longer represents Trump but is under federal investigation in New York for his business dealings and reportedly whether hush payments violated campaign finance laws.
The FBI seized the recording earlier this year during a raid on Cohen’s office, The New York Times said in an explosive revelation, quoting lawyers and others familiar with the recording. Cohen has not yet been arrested or charged.
Former Playboy model Karen ‘Stormy Daniels’ McDougal says she had a months-long affair with Trump after they met in 2006, shortly after Trump’s wife Melania gave birth to their son Barron. She told CNN previously that he tried to pay her for sex.
Trump’s current personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, confirmed the veracity of the recording to the Times, but said that the payment to McDougal was never made, and that the US president had not been party to any wrongdoing.
The recording was less than two minutes, Giuliani told the newspaper.
“Nothing in that conversation suggests that he had any knowledge of it in advance,” Giuliani was quoted as saying. “In the big scheme of things, it’s powerful exculpatory evidence,” he added.
Cohen’s lawyers discovered the recording as part of a review of the materials seized in the raid and shared it with Trump’s attorneys, the Times reported.
Cohen’s lawyer, Lanny Davis, declined to comment when contacted by AFP. “We have nothing to say on this matter,” he told the Times.
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