In the hours after a secretly taped conversation between President Trump and his longtime lawyer Michael Cohen, the White House remained mum despite facing questions on the newly revealed discussion.
Cohen and Trump had talked about a plan to buy from a media company the rights to a former Playboy model’s story about an alleged affair with the future president.
During a meeting with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker in the Oval Office, Trump ignored shouted questions about his longtime lawyer, a move he repeated after delivering a joint statement in the Rose Garden with the European Commission leader.
But despite the silence from the White House on the tape, Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s lawyer, maintains its contents prove no wrongdoing by Trump.
“No matter what you think of it, it doesn’t show any criminality on the part of the president,” Giuliani told the Washington Examiner. “It does show Cohen to be extremely deceptive.”
The recording, from September 2016, provides insight into the deal involving Playboy model Karen McDougal, who alleges having an affair with Trump. American Media Inc. which publishes the National Enquirer, paid McDougal $150,000 for the rights to her story, though it was never published.
In the secret recording, which Cohen’s lawyer Lanny Davis provided to CNN, Cohen can be heard telling Trump he needs to set up a company “for the transfer of all of that info regarding our friend David,” an apparent reference to David Pecker, AMI’s chief executive.
The issue of financing was raised by Cohen later in the conversation, and Trump asks Cohen, “What financing?”
“We’ll have to pay,” Cohen responds.
The president then is heard mentioning “pay with cash,” though the recording is muffled.
Giuliani says no payment was ever made, and stressed that in the recording, Trump can be heard telling Cohen to pay with a check.
The tape raises questions as to how much knowledge the president had of the deal between McDougal and AMI, though Giuliani contends it demonstrates that Trump’s knowledge of the arrangement was minimal.
“It’s not as clear on whether he knew and didn’t know. It’s not clear he knew [of the deal] well in advance of this tape, because he is surprised by certain things,” Giuliani said. “He’s surprised by the fact it has to be financed. He doesn’t seem to know that. He seems to not know some of the details of it.”
Though the extent of the president’s knowledge of the payment to McDougal remains unclear, lawyers say the tape on its own does not provide evidence of criminal wrongdoing.
“It doesn’t seem here that any money was paid for this purpose, so I think it’s difficult to make out a criminal act,” Nick Gravante, a white-collar criminal defense attorney at the Manhattan firm of Boies Schiller Flexner, told the Washington Examiner.
Gravante said Cohen may have decided to release the recording in an effort to send a signal to the president and his legal team but contended it’s difficult to ascertain the benefit of doing so.
“It could be to send a shot across the bow to the president and to his attorney, Mr. Giuliani, saying stop publicly criticizing Michael Cohen because we are not going to put with it and we’re going to fight back,” he said. “It could be a shot across the bow. But aside from that, I don’t see what the benefit of this is if in fact it was a criminal conspiracy because it’s not in Michael Cohen’s interest for the entire world to know he was involved in a criminal conspiracy even if the president was also involved.”
Much of the audio recording of Trump and Cohen’s discussion is unclear, with some parts more difficult to make out than others.
Bruce Green, a law professor at Fordham University, said he doesn’t believe the secret recording “advances the ball.”
“Clearly there’s a little trial in the media going on between two heavyweight criminal defense lawyers, Michael Cohen’s lawyer, Lanny Davis, and Rudy Giuliani,” Green told the Washington Examiner. “They’re both trying his case as if they’re in court. Who are they trying to persuade?”
The president’s longtime lawyer is currently under federal investigation, with prosecutors reportedly looking into whether campaign finance violations were committed with regard to the payments made just before the 2016 campaign to women who claimed to have sexual relations with Trump.
Common Cause, a nonpartisan government watchdog group, filed complaints with the Justice Department and the Federal Election Commission in February calling for investigations into possible violations stemming from AMI’s payment to McDougal.
The group now says the tape released by Cohen bolsters their complaints.
“The recording reaffirms what we alleged in our complaints and confirms that Donald Trump knew about the Karen McDougal hush money payments before the election despite his repeated denials and those of his spokespeople and attorneys,” Common Cause President Karen Hobert Flynn said in a statement. “Denials and tweets in all caps do not make campaign finance violations go away.”
If the release of the secret discussion between Trump and Cohen was intended to send a message to the president and his legal team, it doesn’t appear to have had an immediate impact.
Both Trump and Giuliani took to Twitter on Wednesday morning to slam Cohen for secretly recording a conversation with his client.
“What kind of a lawyer would tape a client? So sad!” Trump tweeted. “Is this a first, never heard of it before? Why was the tape so abruptly terminated (cut) while I was presumably saying positive things? I hear there are other clients and many reporters that are taped—can this be so? Too bad!”
Giuliani suggested Cohen acted unethically when he taped his discussion with Trump.
“If Cohen is telling the truth why are he and Lanny Davis representing the language from President Trump ‘Do not pay cash…CHECK.’ And why are they leaking falsely privileged and confidential information. So much for ethics!” Giuliani tweeted.
Davis, Cohen’s lawyer, told the New York Times on Tuesday Cohen decided to release the recording because “he is on a new path — it’s a reset button to tell the truth and to let the chips fall where they may.”
The “new path” marks a sharp change for Cohen, who once said he would “take a bullet” for Trump.
But Giuliani said the president has “never been concerned” by Cohen’s new seeming willingness to cooperate with federal investigators.
“Now that we know about the tapes and have listened to them all, we’re not concerned at all,” he said. “They’re all neutral or quite supportive of the president’s position.”
