Trump attorneys waive privilege on Cohen’s secret recordings: report

Attorneys for President Trump have reportedly waived attorney-client privilege on a tape recording made by his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, in which the two discuss payments regarding an ex-Playboy model who claims to have had an affair with Trump.

CNN reported that although the special master overseeing evidence provided to the government in Cohen’s case had marked the recording as privileged information, Trump’s attorneys waived the designation. That allows it to be used as evidence in potential legal proceedings.

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Cohen’s team was surprised by the news, the report continued, as Cohen has publicly suggested that the recording could be harmful to the president.

But his attorney, Lanny Davis, dismissed any notion that Cohen could be put in legal jeopardy due to the recording.

“When the recording is heard, it will not hurt Michael Cohen. Any attempt at spin cannot change what is on the tape,” Davis said in a statement on Friday. Davis is a columnist for The Hill.

Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani has maintained that the tape will prove that Trump did not know about the nature of any payment to Karen McDougal or for her story. There are conflicting reports about what is on the tape, but Giuliani has confirmed its existence and the fact that it is a discussion of a payment.

“Nothing in that conversation suggests that he had any knowledge of it in advance,” Giuliani told The New York Times.

“In the big scheme of things, it’s powerful exculpatory evidence,” he added.

The tape was reportedly seized by the FBI as part of a raid of Cohen’s home and offices earlier this year, and reportedly contains a conversation between Trump and Cohen two months before the 2016 election about a payment to McDougal.

McDougal is alleging a yearlong extramarital affair with Trump in 2006.

Cohen is under federal investigation for alleged financial crimes.