Trump says 'too bad' after Cohen audio
recording released
Send a link to a friend
[July 26, 2018]
By Eric Beech, Karen Freifeld and Warren Strobel
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President
Donald Trump on Wednesday expressed disbelief that his longtime personal
lawyer Michael Cohen would have taped conversations with him, a day
after an audio recording of a conversation between the two men was aired
on U.S. television.
A lawyer for Cohen, Lanny Davis, released the recording of Trump and
Cohen discussing paying for the rights to a Playboy model's story about
an alleged affair with Trump and it aired on CNN on Tuesday Night.
Government watchdog group Common Cause has said that the proposed
payment benefited Trump's presidential election campaign and the failure
to document it was potentially illegal.
Some legal experts, however, say that if the payment was made for
personal reasons, it would not run afoul of federal election laws.
Under U.S. election law, presidential candidates must disclose expenses,
loans and campaign contributions, which are defined as things of value
given to a campaign in order to influence an election.
Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani has said the proposed payment was a personal
matter and not subject to campaign finance law.
Before the election, Trump's campaign denied any knowledge of payment to
McDougal, but the taped conversation could undermine those denials.
"What kind of a lawyer would tape a client? So sad! 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!"
Trump wrote in a post on Twitter.
Davis told CNN he released the tape to dispute an assertion by Giuliani
that the tape would show that Trump made clear that if there were going
to be a payment, it should be done by check, which would be easily
traced. Giuliani has said the payment was never made.
In the recording, Trump can be heard saying "pay with cash." Cohen
counters by repeatedly saying, "No."
According to Giuliani, in his transcript of the recording, Trump says on
the tape: "Don't pay with cash. Check."
Reuters was unable to verify the entire exchange between the two men
because of the poor sound quality of the recording. Davis and Giuliani
did not respond to a request for further comment.
In an interview with ABC News, Davis disputed Giuliani's
characterization of the call and said they method of payment was beside
the point.
"It's not about cash versus noncash. It's about truth," Davis said on
"Good Morning America" on Wednesday.
The debate over whether Trump was advocating for payments via cash or
check is "irrelevant" in determining whether he violated campaign
finance laws, said Joshua Douglas, a professor of election law at the
University of Kentucky.
“The question is whether the payment was intended to affect the
campaign,” Douglas said.
Common Cause says the tape bolstered their argument that Trump knew
about the payment and that it was potentially illegal.
[to top of second column]
|
Michael Cohen stands behind Trump as a group of supporters lay hands
on Trump in prayer during a campaign stop at the New Spirit Revival
Center church in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, U.S. September 21, 2016.
REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
"Denials and tweets in all caps do not make campaign finance violations
go away," said Karen Hobert Flynn, president of Common Cause.
But Bradley Smith, a professor at Capital University Law School and
former chairman of the Federal Election Commission, said that Trump
could have considered making the payment for reasons unrelated to
the election.
“People in Trump’s position have all kinds of reasons for making
these kind of payments, like family harmony or retaining commercial
viability,” said Bradley Smith, a professor at Capital University
Law School and former chairman of the Federal Election Commission.
Karen McDougal, the model, alleges she began a 10-month affair with
Trump in 2006. Giuliani denies that Trump had an affair with
McDougal.
Davis said the tape is among audio recordings that were seized by
the FBI in a raid of Cohen's home and office in April. It was turned
over to federal prosecutors last Friday, according to a filing in
federal court in Manhattan on Monday.
In the conversation, recorded in September 2016 at Trump Tower in
New York, Cohen discusses setting up a company to make a payment
apparently involving David Pecker, chief executive of American Media
Inc (AMI) and a close friend of Trump's.
Cohen was proposing to pay AMI, which owns the National Enquirer
newspaper, for the rights to McDougal's story. AMI had bought them
from McDougal for $150,000 but AMI did not publish her story.
"I need to open up a company for the transfer of all of that info
regarding our friend David, so that I'm going to do that right
away," Cohen says in the recording.
AMI acknowledged holding those rights when it relinquished them in
April after McDougal filed a lawsuit against AMI. A representative
for the company did not immediately return a call seeking comment on
the case, the Cohen recording or whether it held any discussion
about the transfer of the rights to Trump.
Federal prosecutors in New York are investigating Cohen for possible
bank and tax fraud, and for possible campaign law violations linked
to a $130,000 payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels and other
matters related to Trump's campaign, a person familiar with the
investigation has told Reuters.
Cohen has not been charged with any crime.
Representatives for the White House did not immediately respond to a
request seeking comment.
(Additional reporting by Ginger Gibson, Susan Heavey and Jan Wolfe;
Editing by Noeleen Walder and Clive McKeef)
[© 2018 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.]
Copyright 2018 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content. |