Trump slams ex-lawyer, says taping of client ‘illegal’
WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump on Saturday slammed his ex-lawyer Michael Cohen, saying he may have acted illegally in secretly taping their discussion about payments to a former Playboy model over an alleged affair.
It was Trump’s first direct reaction to a report broken by the New York Times a day earlier which said the FBI had seized the recording during a raid on Cohen’s office earlier this year. Cohen has not yet been arrested or charged.
“Inconceivable that the government would break into a lawyer’s office (early in the morning) — almost unheard of,” Trump tweeted.
“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!” Former Playboy model Karen McDougal claims she had a months-long affair with Trump after they met in 2006, shortly after Trump’s wife Melania gave birth to their son Barron. She told CNN previously that he tried to pay her for sex.
The Wall Street Journal said the September 2016 conversation between Trump and Cohen was about buying the rights to McDougal’s story, which she had sold a month earlier to The National Enquirer for $150,000.
Published in Dawn, July 22nd, 2018