NBC News on Thursday corrected its bombshell report that claimed federal authorities wiretapped phone lines belonging to President Trump’s longtime lawyer Michael Cohen.
Citing three senior U.S. officials, the corrected report from NBC News instead claims Cohen’s phones were being monitored using a device called a pen register, which records numbers called from a certain phone line and the duration of calls. But that device doesn’t listen into the calls.
NBC News initially reported federal investigators tapped Cohen’s phone lines and intercepted at least one call between Cohen and the White House.
Among the calls logged was at least one between one of Cohen’s phone lines and the White House, according to the corrected article.
The validity of the report was called into question by Rudy Giuliani, who recently joined Trump’s legal team.
Cohen is under investigation for a $130,000 payment made to Stormy Daniels, a former adult film actress who claims she had a sexual encounter with Trump, and a $150,000 payment made to former Playboy model Karen McDougal from the publisher of the National Enquirer.
Both payments were reportedly made before the 2016 presidential election.
FBI agents raided Cohen’s home, office and hotel room early last month, and reportedly took documents pertaining to number of topics, including the payment to Daniels.
Daniels received the money in exchange for her silence about the alleged affair with Trump. Giuliani said in an interview with Fox News on Wednesday that Trump reimbursed Cohen for the $130,000 payment.
Sources close to Giuliani told NBC News he found out about a call Trump made to Cohen following the FBI’s raid and instructed the president not to call his longtime lawyer again out of fear prosecutors were recording the call.
Sources said Giuliani warned Trump that Cohen could decide to cooperate with federal prosecutors, though it’s not clear what information he may have, according to NBC News. Trump, meanwhile, reportedly said he believed Cohen would remain loyal to him.
The White House has denied the allegations Trump had an affair with the women. The president and White House press secretary Sarah Sanders have also denied the president was aware of the payment to Daniels.
Sanders told reporters Thursday she learned that Trump had reimbursed Cohen during Giuliani’s interview Wednesday night.
