Lawyer said to have taped Trump
FBI has recording with talk of money for story of model
NEW YORK — President Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer secretly recorded Trump discussing a potential payment for a former Playboy model’s account of having an affair with him, people familiar with an investigation into the attorney said Friday.
While they said the payment was never made, the recording by attorney Michael Cohen adds to questions about whether Trump tried to quash damaging stories in the run-up to his 2016 election. Trump’s campaign had said it knew nothing about any payment to ex-centerfold Karen Mcdougal.
Current Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani said the brief recording shows Trump did nothing wrong.
“The transaction that Michael is talking about on the tape never took place, but what’s important is if it did take place, the president said it has to be done correctly and it has to be done by check” to keep a proper record of it, Giuliani said.
One of Cohen’s lawyers, Lanny Davis, said “any attempt at spin cannot change what is on the tape.”
“When the recording is heard, it will not hurt Mr. Cohen,” Davis said in a statement.
Cohen surreptitiously made the recording two months before the election, according to a person familiar with a federal investigation into Cohen.
The conversation between Trump and Cohen came weeks after the National Enquirer’s parent company reached a $150,000 deal to pay Mcdougal for her story of a 2006 affair, which it never published, a tabloid practice known as catch and kill. Trump denies the affair ever happened.
The company, American Media Inc., is run by Trump friend and supporter David Pecker.
The FBI, which raided Cohen’s office, home and hotel room in April, has the tape.
Meanwhile, a government watchdog group has asked the Department of Justice and the Federal Election Commission to investigate whether American Media’s payment to the former centerfold amounted to an unreported and illegal corporate campaign contribution.