Patterico's Pontifications

7/25/2018

CNN Obtains Tape of Trump Talking to Cohen

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 8:55 am



It’s outrageous that Mueller would leak this!!!!1! Except 1) Mueller isn’t running this investigation and 2) CNN explicitly says it got the tape from Lanny Davis, Cohen’s lawyer.

Donald Trump complains on Twitter that the tape ends abruptly, which is typically dishonest of him as the sudden end is almost certainly for his protection (my educated guess is that attorney-client privileged materials immediately follow).

It’s not 100% clear what the tapes reveal. They seem to be discussing reimbursing “our friend David” (presumably David Pecker, the head of the National Enquirer), for his “catch and kill” hush money payment to Karen McDougal. The Big Dispute between Lanny Davis and Rudy Giuliani appears to be who was proposing that the sleazy payment be made in cash, with Davis saying Trump proposed that and Giuliani saying Cohen did. I can’t tell — and I can’t figure out why I am supposed to care. Here’s the audio so you can reach your own conclusions:

UPDATE: Interesting question raised by bobble in the comments: perhaps “our friend David” refers to David Dennison (an alias Trump used in these payoffs) rather than David Pecker.

Not impossible at all.

UPDATE x2: On second thought, the “maybe he gets hit by a truck” line seems more consistent with it being Pecker.

[Cross-posted at The Jury Talks Back.]


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