There are at least 12 audio tapes the government seized from President Donald Trump’s former longtime lawyer Michael Cohen, a Monday court filing revealed.…
There are at least 12 audio tapes the government seized from President Donald Trump’s former longtime lawyer Michael Cohen, a Monday court filing revealed.
Special master Barbara Jones wrote in a court filing to US District Judge Kimba Wood on Monday that privilege claims were withdrawn over 12 audio tapes in review — an action that could’ve been taken by either Cohen, Trump, or the Trump Organization.
As special master, Jones is tasked with overseeing the document review for privilege designations in the ongoing Cohen investigation taking place in the Southern District of New York.
Because the parties released their privilege claims over the tapes, they’ve been turned over to federal investigators probing Cohen, she wrote. It is unclear who appears on the tapes.
The existence of one of those 12 tapes was revealed on Friday when The New York Times reported that Cohen recorded a conversation with Trump just two months ahead of the 2016 election in which they discussed payments to former Playboy model Karen McDougal. That recording was among several the FBI seized in April when it raided Cohen’s properties. Reporting of the tape’s contents seemed to contradict the Trump campaign’s past denial of any knowledge of such payments to McDougal.
Cohen is the focus of a criminal investigation into whether he violated campaign-finance laws, committed bank fraud or wire fraud, engaged in illegal lobbying, or participated in other crimes. The FBI seized more than 4 million documents in the April raids.
In a payment that Cohen helped negotiate, the National Enquirer purchased McDougal’s story of an affair with Trump for $150,000 in August 2016. But the outlet never published the piece. That practice is known as “catch and kill,” and it effectively silenced McDougal’s allegations. Federal investigators had sought documents in the Cohen raids related to that payment and similar payments to other women.
Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, confirmed to The Times that Trump discussed payments to McDougal with Cohen, but he said that ultimately no payment was made. Giuliani said the recording was less than two minutes long, and that there was no indication based on it that Trump knew of the payment to American Media Inc. beforehand.
Giuliani said that Trump told Cohen that if he did pay McDougal, it should be in the form of a check instead of cash so that it could be properly recorded, The Times reported.
“In the big scheme of things, it’s powerful exculpatory evidence,” Giuliani said.
Other reporting has differed from Giuliani’s description. CNN reported, citing a source familiar with the recording, that when Trump was informed about the tape he said he couldn’t “believe Michael would do this to me.”
Meanwhile, Trump’s own legal team decided to revoke the privilege designation on that tape, multiple publications reported over the weekend. A source with knowledge of the withdrawal confirmed to Business Insider that the Trump legal team removed the privilege designation over the tape.
Giuliani did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
On Saturday, Trump tweeted about the tape, saying it was “inconceivable that the government would break into a lawyer’s office (early in the morning) — almost unheard of.”
The government — acting on a search warrant — did not break into Cohen’s office.
“Even more inconceivable that a lawyer would tape a client — totally unheard of & perhaps illegal,” Trump added. “The good news is that your favorite President did nothing wrong!”
New York, where the taping reportedly took place, legally requires only one person’s consent for such a recording, suggesting such a recording would not be illegal. However, the New York State Bar Association considers such a practice unethical.
