WASHINGTON (AP) - The Latest on recordings of President Donald Trump and his onetime personal attorney, Michael Cohen (all times local):
8:50 a.m.
President Donald Trump is firing back at his longtime personal attorney Michael Cohen after the release of a recording Cohen secretly made of a conversation between the two men.
“What kind of lawyer would tape a client? So sad!” the president says Wednesday on Twitter. The tape, made two months before the 2016 presidential election, captures Trump discussing a potential payment for a former Playboy model’s account of having an affair with him.
Lawyers for the two men have said the payments ultimately were never made.
The tape appears to contradict the Trump campaign’s later claim that Trump knew nothing about payments to a media company to keep model Karen McDougal’s story from becoming public.
Trump suggested Wednesday that the tape cuts off when he was “presumably saying positive things” and that other clients and reporters were taped by Cohen.
Cohen’s attorney has said he released the tape after being subjected to an “intense campaign of disparagement” by the president’s team.
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7:35 a.m.
The attorney for Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s longtime lawyer, says Rudy Giuliani is “inventing words” as he defends Trump after the release of a tape Cohen secretly made of Trump discussing a potential payment for a former Playboy model’s account of having an affair with him.
On the audio tape, made two months before the election, Trump can be heard saying “pay with cash.”
Giuliani, Trump’s current lawyer, says he’s had an expert enhance the muffled recording. He says Trump actually says, “Don’t pay with cash,” showing Trump was not trying to hide the potential payment to a media company to keep model Karen McDougal’s story from becoming public. Trump’s lawyers say the payments were never made.
Lanny Davis, Cohen’s lawyer, said on ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Wednesday that Cohen is not seeking a pardon from the president as he faces a federal criminal investigation on campaign finance and bank fraud allegations in New York.
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6:40 a.m.
Two months before the 2016 election, Donald Trump and his lawyer discussed plans for hush money payments to a former Playboy model alleging an affair.
That’s according to a secretly recorded tape of the conversation released amid an escalating feud between the president and his longtime personal attorney, Michael Cohen.
The tape appears to contradict the Trump campaign’s later claim that Trump knew nothing about payments to the model, Karen McDougal, made through a media company.
The tape captures the soon-to-be president and his lawyer discussing logistics of financing and whether to “pay with cash,” although the sound is muffled and Trump’s instructions on that are unclear. Lawyers for the two men are disputing what was said.
Cohen’s attorney, Lanny Davis, provided the tape to CNN, which aired it Tuesday.
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