(Image source from: NBC Washington)
The United States President Donald Trump's erstwhile personal attorney Michael Cohen covertly recorded Trump debating a possible payment for a latter Playboy model's account of having an affair with him, people familiar with an investigation into the attorney said on Friday.
The tapping was recovered as part of the raid on Michael Cohen's home office and hotel carried out last year in New York, the sources told ABC News.
Attorney's recording adds to questions regarding whether Trump tried to repeal harming stories in the approach to his 2016 election. Trump's campaign had said it knew nil about any payment to ex-centerfold Karen McDougal. It could besides further involve the president in a criminal investigation that for months has targeted Cohen, his onetime lawyer and close ally.
Actual Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani said the payment was never made and the brief recording shows Trump did nothing erroneous.
"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 sneakily made the recording two months earlier the election, according to a person familiar with a federal investigation into Cohen.
The communication between Trump and Cohen came after the National Enquirer's parent company reached a $150,000 deal to pay McDougal for her tale 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.
Though the election, the company's payment effectively silenced McDougal, though days ahead news of the deal appeared in The Wall Street Journal. At the time, a Trump spokeswoman said his campaign had "no knowledge of any of this."
But in the recorded conversation, Trump and Cohen appear to be discussing buying the rights to McDougal's story from the Enquirer's parent company, according to the person familiar with the investigation.
The FBI raided Cohen's office, home and hotel room in April, searching in part for information about payments to McDougal and porn actress Stormy Daniels, who accepted a $130,000 payment from Cohen ahead the election to keep quiet about a sexual relationship she says she had with Trump.
The Cohen investigation, in the meantime by New York's federal prosecutors, is apart from current inquiry by special counsel Robert Mueller into potential coordination between the Trump run and Russia.
Cohen has not been charged with any crime.
By Sowmya Sangam
