Cohen Recorded Conversations with Donald Trump

When you secure the services of an attorney, you assume all communications are protected, privileged, and will not be made public.

Unfortunately for Donald Trump, that is not how Michael Cohen ran his shop.

Trump has found out the hard way that Cohen is a rat, but it may not have been as damaging as we initially thought.

The Call

Cohen recorded conversations with Trump while he was working as Trump’s “fixer.”

This more or less means that Cohen took care of all legal issues for Trump while he was working for him.

In one conversation, Cohen is discussing a payment that was to be made to David Pecker, allegedly to repay him for the catch-and-kill story.

Cohen is heard stating, “I need to open up a company regarding the transfer for our friend David…I’ve spoken to Allen Weisselberg…I’m all over that, I’ve spoken to Allen, when it comes to financing…”

Trump then interrupts him, asking, “What financing.” Trump would later tell Cohen to pay “in cash.”

Pecker took some of the steam out of that by stating that he had made plenty of catch-and-kill purchases of stories against many high-profile athletes, politicians, and stars, usually to have some leverage over them for future use.

Not only that, but Stormy Daniels’ attorney testified that he would not consider the payment made to Daniels as hush money, but that it was instead a civil settlement.

As plenty of legal pundits have stated in the last few days, those terms may be interchangeable to an attorney.

However, to a member of the jury, it could plant a seed of doubt regarding why Trump had the money categorized the way it was in the ledger.

For prosecution witnesses, I have to say, Bragg is not off to a good start.