President Trump’s former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, recorded a two-hour-long conversation with CNN’s Chris Cuomo shortly after The Wall Street Journal broke the story about a $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels, the newspaper reported.
Two people familiar with the tape told the Journal on Wednesday that Cohen spoke at length with Cuomo about the nondisclosure agreement he arranged with the adult-film star to keep quiet about her alleged affair with Trump.
“I did it on my own,” Cohen told Cuomo about the payment, according to the people familiar with the matter.
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The taped phone call appears to echo what Cohen said publicly for months.
Trump originally denied knowledge of the payment and Cohen took full responsibility, saying he used his own funds to pay Daniels.
Trump’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, later revealed that Trump reimbursed Cohen for the payment.
In the call, Cohen reportedly told Cuomo that the $130,000 should not count as an in-kind contribution to Trump’s presidential bid.
“It wasn’t for the campaign. It was for him,” Cohen said, referring to Trump, according to the Journal.
Cohen also told Cuomo he wasn’t running a tape, according to people familiar with the call, instead saying he had put his phone in a desk drawer and the whole conversation was off the record.
Cohen’s phone was actually recording the entire conversation, the Journal reported.
A CNN spokeswoman declined to comment to the newspaper on Cuomo’s behalf.
Giuliani also declined to comment or share a transcript of the conversation with Cuomo.
“We can’t comment on a tape that hasn’t been released,” Giuliani told the newspaper.
Lanny Davis, Cohen’s lawyer and a columnist for The Hill, said Cohen routinely recorded conversations instead of taking notes.
“He had no intention of ever publicizing such tapes nor any intention to ever deceive anyone,” Davis told the Journal.
Cuomo obtained the audio on Wednesday night of another one of Cohen’s recordings.
CNN played on-air the highly anticipated audio of Cohen’s conversation with Trump about buying the rights for the story of Karen McDougal — the former Playboy model who claimed to have had an affair with Trump.
Cohen, then the top lawyer at the Trump Organization, suggests to Trump in the recording that they buy the rights to McDougal’s story after it had been purchased by the National Enquirer weeks before for $150,000.
Cohen reportedly formed a shell company with the intent of using it to pay for the story, but the sale never went through, the Journal reported.
McDougal’s story was never published and she is now suing American Media Inc., the National Enquirer’s owner.