Trump tape a turning point in legal maneuvers,
WASHINGTON — The sudden public airing of Donald Trump talking about paying for a Playboy model’s silence marks a turning point in the legal game of cat-and-mouse between the president and the lawyer who once promised to take a bullet for him but now seems out to save himself.
The feud between Trump and his onetime legal “fixer,” Michael Cohen, escalated Wednesday when an audio recording of their 2016 pre-election conversation was released by Cohen, prompting Trump to tweet, “What kind of a lawyer would tape a client? So sad!”
As the two sides battled over the exact meaning of the sometimes-garbled words on the recording, it was clear the tape could be just an opening volley. At least a dozen more recordings were seized from Cohen’s office as well as hundreds of thousands of documents.
The tape, made just weeks before the 2016 election, appears to undermine Trump’s contention he was not aware of a payment to former Playboy Playmate Karen McDougal, who has alleged she had an affair with the married future president.
That raises questions about possible campaign finance violations. It shows Cohen advising Trump on campaign matters, and that could be of interest to investigators looking into whether the lawyer violated election laws by orchestrating hush money payouts.
Cohen said on the tape he’s already spoken with the Trump Organization’s finance chief, Allen Weisselberg, on “how to set the whole thing up.”Weisselberg’s involvement raises questions about whether Trump’s private business tried to protect his campaign.
Trump’s lawyers said the payments were never made.
The tape’s revelations also mark a new chapter for Cohen who, as he mulls cooperating with federal prosecutors and perhaps special counsel Robert Mueller, is viewed by many in Trump’s orbit as the greatest threat to the former businessman’s presidency.
Cohen rose through the ranks of the Trump organization by mimicking his boss’ style in handling his personal and political problems. Now he and his own attorney, former Clinton lawyer Lanny Davis, are taking another page from the Trump playbook — fighting a legal battle in the court of public opinion.
With his apartment under construction after a pipe burst, Cohen has been holed up in a Midtown Manhattan hotel. From that luxurious bunker, Cohen has grown increasingly concerned that his relationship with the president has fractured beyond repair, according to two people familiar with his views but not authorized to discuss them publicly.
Cohen, who would make bad stories disappear and travel the globe to make deals for the Trump Organization, now feels increasingly isolated and burned by the attacks against him, by Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani and by the president’s efforts to play down his former fixer’s role.
And when the president’s legal team waived attorneyclient privilege, prompting Giuliani to declare the tape was “exculpatory” for Trump, Cohen’s team moved to release it, believing it backed up his own version of events, the people said. The attorney told confidants he was tired of being a punching bag and wanted to try to seize control of the story.