The United States President Donald Trump blasted his former lawyer Michael Cohen on Wednesday, the morning after CNN aired the audio of a recording Cohen made of the two.
"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 tweeted.
Trump and Cohen can be heard conversing how they would purchase the rights to former Playboy model Karen McDougal's story over a supposed affair she had with Trump years earlier, which Trump repudiates, in the audio aired first on CNN's "Cuomo Prime Time." Court filings said federal prosecutors have 12 recordings from Cohen, and CNN beforehand confirmed the footage with Trump is among those 12.
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Cohen, for his personal dealings is under criminal investigation by the U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan, including the payment he made to porn actress Stormy Daniels on behalf of Trump before the election, though he has not been charged with any wrongdoing.
Cohen's attorney Lanny Davis provided CNN the September 2016 recording and said Trump's attorney Rudy Giuliani had been "falsely disparaging" Cohen.
Giuliani resisted that the recording would not harm Trump after news broke last week in The New York Times that the recording of Trump and Cohen was among those obtained by prosecutors. CNN reported that Trump's attorneys had waived his attorney-client privilege on the tape.
Trump, though, articulated annoyance over the tape previous weekend on Twitter, calling both the seizure of the recording and Cohen's creation of it "inconceivable."
"Inconceivable that the government would break into a lawyer's office (early in the morning) - almost unheard of. Even more inconceivable that a lawyer would tape a client - totally unheard of & perhaps illegal. The good news is that your favorite President did nothing wrong!" Trump tweeted.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), however, was executing court-approved warrants in conducting the searches.
By Sowmya Sangam
