TRUMP: I DID NOTHING WRONG WITH MODEL
He says lawyer’s taping of his talk on buying ex-Playboy model’s story may be illegal
PRESIDENT Donald Trump yesterday denied any wrongdoing a day after reports that his onetime attorney Michael Cohen had recorded them both discussing buying the rights to a story by a woman who said she had an affair with Trump.
Trump said in a tweet it was “perhaps illegal” for a lawyer to record a client. An attorney for Cohen called Trump’s statement “false”.
“Inconceivable that the government would break into a lawyer’s office (early in the morning) — almost unheard of,” Trump tweeted, in an apparent reference to a Federal Bureau of Investigation raid on Cohen in April.
“Even more inconceivable that a lawyer would tape a client — totally unheard of & perhaps illegal. The good news is that your favourite President did nothing wrong!” Trump wrote.
One of the president’s lawyers said on Friday that Cohen recorded a conversation with Trump two months before the 2016 election, in which they discussed buying the rights to a story by a former Playboy model, Karen McDougal, who claimed to have an affair with Trump.
Lawyer Rudy Giuliani said no campaign funding was involved in the discussion between Trump and Cohen. If campaign funds were used, that could run afoul of federal election law.
In a tweet yesterday, a lawyer for Cohen, Lanny Davis, called Trump and Giuliani’s strategy “flawed” and the president’s Twitter statement against Cohen “false”.
“Rudy claims the tape is ‘exculpatory’. Why so angry?” Davis wrote.
Before the election, the Trump campaign denied any knowledge of payment to McDougal, but the taped conversation could undermine those denials.
The existence of the audio recording was first reported by the New York Times, which said Trump and Cohen discussed a payment to McDougal.
Giuliani confirmed the conversation and that it took place in September 2016 but said it involved reimbursing the parent company of the National Enquirer tabloid for McDougal’s story rights. The payment was never made, he said.
Giuliani also denied Trump had an affair with McDougal. He said the tape would show that Trump makes clear that if there is going to be a payment, it should be done by check, which would be easily traced.