Close associates and allies of U.S. President Donald Trump are worried that the FBI investigators that raided Michael Cohen’s office may have seized recordings of conversations made by Trump’s personal lawyer.
The Washington Post reported Thursday that Cohen had a habit of tapping his conversations with others and later he would play them back for colleagues.
Now some Trump associates reportedly fear that tapes of recorded conversations could have been taken by FBI agents during the raid of Cohen’s office on Monday.
“We heard he had some proclivity to make tapes,” one Trump adviser told the paper. “Now we are wondering, who did he tape? Did he store those someplace where they were actually seized? Did they find his recordings?”
However, there is no information suggesting that Cohen did record any conversations between himself and Trump, but sources told the Post that Cohen recorded discussions dealing with both business and politics.
According to The Post, one individual said that Cohen would play recordings for him of the Trump lawyer talking with other top advisers to the President.
“It was his standard practice to do it,” that individual said.
Several experts stated that Cohen’s taped conversations would be highly valuable to prosecutors.
“If you are looking for evidence, you can’t do any better than people talking on tape,” said Nick Akerman, a former Watergate prosecutor.
“Such recordings would be considered a gold mine,” said Stephen Gillers, a law professor at New York University who specializes in legal ethics.
“The significance is 9.5 to 10 on a 10-point scale,” he added, noting that investigators know “that when people speak on the phone, they are not guarded. They don’t imagine that the conversation will surface.”
Cohen’s office was raided by FBI agents on Monday partly on a referral from special counsel Robert Mueller, Cohen’s lawyer said. The agents were also seeking any records about Cohen’s communications with Trump and Trump campaign aides on “potential sources of negative publicity,” ahead of the 2016 presidential election, the Post wrote.
Records about payments made to women accusing Trump of extramarital affairs years ago, especially about adult film star Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal, were also searched.
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