Details of Trump-Cohen tape surface, and Donald Trump’s words directly incriminate him
There are still competing theories and claims about just who leaked word yesterday that the FBI has possession of Michael Cohen’s secret tape recordings of his conversations with Donald Trump. Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani, a consistent liar, claimed that the tape exonerated Trump. But now the details of the tape are surfacing, and suffice it to say that the tape does anything but exonerate Trump. In fact it does the opposite.
Someone who has heard the tape has told CNBC about the conversation. It does indeed center around Donald Trump and Michael Cohen discussing a payoff to Trump’s mistress Karen McDougal. The crux of the conversation is that Trump wanted the payment to be made in cash, while Cohen insisted that it be made by check. Why would they disagree over this, and why would it matter? In legal terms, it goes straight to intent.
If you’re going to make a six figure payoff to keep someone quiet, the only reason to do it cash would be to try to keep it off the books and make sure that the authorities never find out about it. So this makes fairly clear that Trump knew such a payout would have been a violation of the law, and that he was attempting to keep it hidden from the law. Cohen’s insistence on paying by check could be interpreted as a sign that he wanted to do this by the books, and therefore that he didn’t believe what they were discussing was illegal.
Michael Cohen was never officially a part of the Donald Trump campaign and he has no experience in political campaigns in general, so he could try to make the argument that he didn’t know that such a payoff from a candidate to keep someone quiet was a violation of federal election law. This may explain why Cohen’s attorney Lanny Davis tweeted that “when the recording is heard, it will not hurt Michael Cohen.” On the other hand, Trump’s own reported words on this tape directly incriminate him, because they demonstrate that he was consciously trying to break the law and hide it.
