Trump lashes ex-lawyer saying client taping ‘perhaps illegal’

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump lashed out at his former lawyer, saying Michael Cohen may have acted illegally in secretly taping their discussion about a payment to hush up an alleged affair with a Playboy model.

Trump’s earlymorning tweet was his first direct reaction to a

New York Times report on Friday that the FBI had seized the recording during an April raid on Cohen’s office amid an investigation of possible Trump campaign collusion with Russia.

Cohen has not yet been arrested or charged with any crime. But his cooperation with the government could prove vital to prosecutors – a scenario that could be made more likely by an open split with Trump.

While Cohen was once quoted as saying he would “take a bullet” for the president, Trump’s tweet and the sharp reply from Cohen’s lawyer Lanny Davis could signal that the bond between the two has been damaged, if not broken.

“Inconceivable that the government would break into a lawyer’s office (early in the morning) – almost unheard of,” Trump tweeted on Saturday.

Former Playboy model Karen McDougal claims she had an 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.

The Wall Street Journal said the recorded September 2016 conversation between Trump and Cohen was about buying the rights to McDougal’s story, which she had sold a month earlier to The National Enquirer for US$ 150,000 (RM609,370).

The tabloid never published the story. The chairman of its parent company, American Media, is a friend of Trump.

Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s current personal attorney, confirmed to the

Times that the Cohen tape existed, but said it showed the president had done nothing wrong.

He called it “exculpatory” because it showed Trump had no advance knowledge of a possible payment. None in fact was made.

But Davis tweeted on Saturday that Trump and Giuliani’s strategy in the matter was “flawed; just as is #Trump’s false #Twitter statement made against” Cohen.

The reports raise questions about why Trump’s campaign denied knowledge of the deal between McDougal and American Media when it became public, and they have fanned speculation about how much damage Cohen might be able to inflict on the president.