Bitch!
The FBI didn’t just seize one tape that happened to have Donald Trump’s voice on it discussing the possibility of paying off former Playboy playmate (which feels like the equivalent of saying former high school junior varsity standout) Karen McDougal, they seized 12 tapes!
Count them with me.
One, two, three, four ... a whole bunch of tapes!
Wait, before you get all hype like I am, there is no word that Trump is on the other 11 tapes, but apparently Michael Cohen was out here making tapes like Kid Capri in the ’80s. Michael Cohen was mixing tapes like a young Master P. He was moving tapes like Drake’s godfather when he was trying to get Rap-A-Lot Records off the ground.
According to NBC News, in April when the FBI raided all of Cohen’s spots, including his office and hotel rooms in Manhattan, they seized all kinds of goodies like documents and 12 tapes!
Have you been listening?!
Cohen got tapes like Scotch.
Here’s how NBC News explains what’s happening with Cohen’s masters, which have now been given to federal investigators.
At least one of the tapes is a secret recording of Trump that Cohen made just before the 2016 presidential election, in which Cohen and Trump discussed a buying the rights to the story of a former Playboy model who says she had an affair with Trump, according to Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani and an individual with knowledge of Cohen’s legal strategy.
It is not known whose voice is on the other 11 tapes, but Cohen, a former in-house counsel at the Trump Organization, said in court earlier this year that he only had three clients in 2017 and 2018 — Trump, Fox News host Sean Hannity and Elliott Broidy, the former deputy finance chairman of the Republican National Committee, who impregnated and then paid a woman with whom he had an affair.
The 12 tapes were among the seized items submitted to a court-appointed special master to see if they were covered by attorney-client privilege. The entities or “parties” covered by the search warrant — meaning Cohen and the Trump Organization — withdrew their designations of privilege for the 12 tapes.
Once the “parties” waived the designation, Special Master Barbara Jones turned the tapes over to federal prosecutors.
And here’s the best part, according to NBC News, a lawyer recording a meeting with a client is not illegal. “Taping a conversation is the functional equivalent of retaining notes,” a source familiar with Cohen’s legal strategy told the news station.
So Trump’s claims that it was “inconceivable that a lawyer would tape a client—totally unheard of & perhaps illegal,” might just be bullshit. Who are we kidding, of course it’s bullshit. I bet Trump is wishing he paid Cohen’s lawyers’ fees when he had the chance.