Posted on 07/23/2018 9:56:00 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
On Friday, first lady Melania Trump responded to Michael Cohen's "Trump tapes," the existence of which was reported earlier in the day. The New York Times reported that Cohen, Donald Trump's former attorney, secretly recorded a conversation wherein the two discussed making payments to Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model who claims to have an affair with Trump. In a statement Friday, however, Melania refused to address the reports, and made clear that she won't be doing so at any point in the future.
"Mrs. Trump remains focused on her role as a mother and as First Lady of the United States," Melania's communications director Stephanie Grisham said in a statement. "We will have no further comment on the topic."
A White House spokesperson told ABC News that "the president says he never had a relationship with McDougal."
Rudy Giuliani, the former New York City mayor now representing the president, confirmed the existence of the tapes after the Times report. Giuliani said that no payment to McDougal was ever made, however, and characterized the tapes as "powerful exculpatory evidence." According to the Times, the tapes are now in the possession of the FBI, which raided Cohen's office earlier in the year.
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McDougal's claim that she had an affair with Donald was first reported before the election. However, the revelation that Cohen and Donald discussed paying McDougal two months before the 2016 election raises questions about how much Donald's team knew about her allegations, and when.
Days before the election, the Wall Street Journal reported that McDougal claimed to have had a nine-month affair with Donald, and that the National Enquirer paid her $150,000 for the exclusive rights to her story. But the tabloid never published her account, and McDougal later confirmed to the New Yorker that she signed a confidentiality agreement with the Enquirer's parent company — the chairman of which is a close friend of Donald — banning her from speaking publicly about the alleged affair.
After the Journal story was published in November 2016, Donald's former top aide Hope Hicks said in a statement that "we have no knowledge of any of this." However, Giuliani confirmed Friday that two months earlier, Donald and Cohen had discussed reimbursing the Enquirer for its payment to McDougal — which of course, they couldn't have done if Donald's team had "no knowledge" of McDougal's dealings with the Enquirer.
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In a statement to the Daily Beast, Cohen's attorney Lanny Davis said that "when the recording you are reading about is heard, it will not hurt Mr. Cohen." Davis added that "any attempt to spin this story cannot change what is on the tape," which one source told the Beast is likely a reference to Giuliani's claim that the tape is "exculpatory."
That’s “President Donald J. Trump” to you Seth!
“President Trump”, or Mr. Trump.
I doubt very much that you are on a first name basis with the GREATEST PRESIDENT EVER!
A lawyer is a lawyer, regardless of how he is used.
And Bill Clinton is a rapist who raped while in office.
And that wasn’t an issue for anyone back then.
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don’t forget that paula corbin jones sued bubba (while he was in office) and was awarded over $800,000 which bubba had to pay......outta thin air
Clintons were still relatively small time grifters.
at that point hildabeast’s idea of pay to play was renting the Lincoln bedroom at the WH to Markie Post of Barbara Streisand
who knows, maybe it was paula corbin jones that launched bubba & hildaabeast to the big leagues of pay to play??
He was more like someone doing odd jobs. This doesn’t take away from Trump.
I hate to jump on the anti-lawyer bandwagon, but I had someone not long ago that turned out to be incredibly malicious, untrustworthy, arrogant, and incompetent - and they were working for me.
Actually, I looked this up the other day, and most states DO allow it, there are only a few that don’t...CA, WA, MT, MN, FL, MA, NH, VT, CT, IL, PA, DE, MD, and FL.
THAT is a great Picture.
The FLOTUS is absolutely Gorgeous and the shot could not have been framed any better IMHO.
There is a reason that a TV Show is called “better call Saul” and not “better call Cohen”.
I don’t think that means he is fake...as long as he as a valid law license, that makes him an attorney.
His license is due to be renewed next month.
It isn’t against the law to record a person without their knowledge in NJ or NY, but I would think there are serious ethical issues with having a client who you recorded, and releasing it.
That just seems completely, absolutely, a violation of the lawyer-client relationship.
DAMN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That woman is pure class!!!!!!!!!
This is what I think about these women crawling out of the woodwork like a bunch of roaches with their accusations.........
MAGA!!!!!
I find that impossible to believe.
Hillary was a superior hottie at the time...
Just look at her.
Or that other well known playmate, Kristine Hanson, the weather chick, at 66...
She really endures more than her share of humiliation. Though I suspect she knew of his proclivities before they agreed to marry.
That the Left has been deliberately trying to destroy the Trumps’ marriage
I agree and also why i would like to see the democrat party and their shills in the media put on boats outbound from the country. They are nothing but dung beetles.
What’s the big deal? He paid her- he didn’t KILL her. Did anyone ask Ted-the swimmers- wife what she thought about drowned mistresses?
All true. But attorney client privilege is at a different level than just a worker. It’s in the legal realm where breaking that trust is illegal.
Of course. But he is still like a phoney quasi slip and fall lawyer type. He only did a tiny, tiny little fraction of Trump’s legal work. Trump has so many more attornies that do the real work.
You are probably right...Trump probably had enough money to give him to keep him on retainer, and the guy wasn’t ambitious enough to need more than that, I guess.
LOL, just reading your post, all I could hear was Mark Levin's voice saying that...he seems to have a knack of making the phrase drip with contempt and disgust!
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