Trump allies concerned FBI agents may have seized recordings made by Michael Cohen

(Image credit: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

published 13 April 2018

On occasion, President Trump's personal lawyer Michael Cohen would tape conversations he had with associates, and allies of Trump are concerned those digital files may have been seized by FBI agents during the raid of Cohen's home, office, and hotel room on Monday, three people familiar with the matter told The Washington Post.

Cohen, who used to work at the Trump Organization but had no formal role with the Trump campaign, was known for secretly recording people in order to have leverage, one person told the Post, and he would note that under New York law, just one party had to consent to the taping. It's unclear if he ever recorded conversations he had with Trump, but one person said Trump knew Cohen taped people because he'd play the recordings to him.

The FBI seized computers and telephones, but any recordings would have to be reviewed by a Department of Justice team and possibly a federal judge, to protect lawyer-client privilege and ensure the conversations are within the terms of the search warrant, legal experts told the Post. This privilege does not apply if a conversation was conducted to further a crime or fraud. "If you are looking for evidence, you can't do any better than people talking on tape," Nick Akerman, a former Watergate prosecutor, told the Post.

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

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