Sean Hannity seems to be begging Michael Cohen not to release tapes of him

Now that Michael Cohen has publicly released a recording he made of an incriminating conversation he had with Donald Trump, there is every reason to believe he might continue releasing such tapes. After all, we know that at least twelve Cohen tapes are in the hands of federal investigators, suggesting that he was recording just about everything. This is a big problem for Trump. It also may be a big problem for Cohen’s other client, Sean Hannity.

Even as Donald Trump has been publicly ramping up his aggression against Michael Cohen on Twitter, Sean Hannity is taking things in the other direction. After Cohen gave the one tape of himself and Trump to CNN last night, an unusually hesitant Hannity said this on-air during his Fox News show: “I have known Michael a long time. I like Michael. He has a lovely family. I honestly think what they’ve done to him is wrong. I was not a client of his, although I did ask him a legal question. We used to talk privately … I don’t know what these other eleven tapes are about.”

There’s more than one way to slice and dice Sean Hannity’s words. But what we think we’re hearing is Hannity trying to kiss Michael Cohen’s backside, for fear that Cohen might release any recordings he made of Hannity. We’ve even got Hannity admitting, out of nowhere and for no reason, that he and Cohen used to “talk privately.”

Here’s something to keep in mind. Donald Trump and his legal team have access to all of the twelve tapes in question. If Sean Hannity is on any of the tapes, his buddy Trump has surely tipped him off about it. Now Hannity is suddenly going so far as to praise Michael Cohen’s family on live national television. Are we really looking at the prospect of scandalous or incriminating Cohen-Hannity tapes? In any case, because Hannity is insisting he wasn’t a formal client of Cohen, by default he’s waived any attorney-client privilege that these tapes might have fallen under.