Avenatti says Cohen’s Trump recording ‘is not the only tape’
Stormy Daniels’s attorney Michael Avenatti said Michael Cohen has several audio recordings of President Trump discussing women who have come forward after allegedly having affairs with Trump.
The New York Times reported Friday that Cohen, a longtime lawyer and fixer for Trump, secretly recorded Trump discussing paying Playboy model Karen McDougal ahead of the 2016 election to keep her from talking about their alleged relationship more than a decade earlier.
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Avenatti told MSNBC on Friday that there are more tapes.
“I know for a fact that this is not the only tape,” Avenatti said. “I think this is a very serious matter and I think that any or all audio tapes that Michael Cohen has in his possession relating to this president should be released for the public.”
Avenatti said the FBI is already in possession of the tapes after they raided Cohen’s home, office and hotel room in April as part of a criminal investigation into his business dealings.
“There’s nothing that’s stopping Michael Cohen from releasing the audio recordings that he made between him and the president concerning my client, Ms. McDougal, and others,” Avenatti said.
Rudy Giuliani, a member of Trump’s legal team, said in The New York Times article that McDougal, a former model who says she had a yearlong affair with Trump shortly after he married first lady Melania Trump, was never paid the amount in question.
Giuliani said the recording about McDougal is less than two minutes long and shows Trump did nothing wrong, according to the Times.
Trump told Cohen in the recorded conversation to make a potential payment in the form of a check so it could be documented, Giuliani said in the article.
“In the big scheme of things, it’s powerful exculpatory evidence,” Giuliani said.
Trump has denied the allegations from McDougal and Daniels.
McDougal is suing the owner of the National Enquirer, saying the company paid her $150,000 for a story about the alleged affair but then withheld it from publication.
Daniels, the adult-film star whose real name is Stephanie Clifford and who also says she had an affair with Trump more than a decade ago, was paid $130,000 by Cohen days before the 2016 presidential election. Giuliani revealed earlier this year that Trump reimbursed Cohen for the payment, despite the president previously denying that he had any knowledge of it.
Daniels is suing both Trump and Cohen for libel after denying her claims of an affair.