Michael Cohen's 100 secret recordings on phone, including one with Trump, can be used against him

By bellecarter // 2024-05-21

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Michael Cohen has been called up as the star witness of the prosecution in Trump's hush money trial in New York. He has admitted under oath that he had recorded about 100 calls with journalists on his phone when he was still former President Donald Trump's lawyer. He also confessed to having recorded a call with the former president, where they discussed plans to buy a Playboy model's story about having an alleged affair with Trump. In an interview on Fox News, trial attorney Mercedes Colwin pointed out that based on the testimony, Cohen is just proving that he is untrustworthy. According to her, no laws have been broken as New York is a one-party consent state, where it is legal to record conversations without the other party's consent. "But it's cringeworthy for jurors to sit there who are trying to determine his credibility that he has so many recordings. When this comes up in cases that I've handled, especially if it's at the opposing side, you can certainly put your arms around it and almost jump up and down in glee." Because this is something that can be used against the opposing side, Colwin explained.

Cohen claims to have recorded Trump attempting to buy rights to a story so it wouldn't be published

Cohen, who worked for Trump for more than a decade, said to the Manhattan Supreme Court jurors during the most recent hearing that the Sept. 6, 2016, conversation, taped on the Voice Memos app on his iPhone, was the only time he recorded his former boss. "So, what do we get to pay for this? One-fifty?" Trump could allegedly be heard saying on the nearly three-minute recording played in court by Assistant District Attorney Susan Hoffinger. The call focused on plans to buy the rights to former Playboy Playmate Karen McDougal's story about having an affair with the former POTUS from the National Enquirer, Cohen said in the testimony. He further claimed that the call was recorded to assure then-National Enquirer publisher David Pecker that Trump would reimburse Pecker the $150,000 he paid to McDougal for the exclusive rights to her story, which he never planned to publish. "It was so I could show it to David Pecker and that way he would hear the conversation, that he would know … Mr. Trump is going to be paying him back," Trump's former lawyer said on the stand. Colwin noted: "If the jury believes that Cohen has lied about anything on the stand, they can discount the entirety of his testimony." Meanwhile, sitting at the defense table in the courtroom, Trump could be seen smirking and shaking his head at Cohen's explanation for making the recording without telling him. Earlier, Cohen laid out for jurors the myriad ways he acted like a "fixer" for the real estate mogul, including threatening to sue reporters who published unfavorable stories about him, getting a yellow cab company to pay for a fender-bender with his limo and generally lying and bullying others on his behalf. (Related: NYT op-ed: 'I thought the Bragg case against Trump was a legal embarrassment. Now I think it's a historic mistake.') Visit Trump.news to read more news related to the ongoing legal battle the former president is fighting. Watch the video below that talks about how Cohen failed miserably in Trump's trial. This video is from the NewsClips channel on Brighteon.com.

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Cohen claims to have recorded Trump attempting to buy rights to a story so it wouldn't be published

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