Federal prosecutors now have 12 audio recordings made by Michael Cohen


On Friday, federal prosecutors were given 12 audio recordings seized from Michael Cohen, a court filing made public Monday states.
Cohen is President Trump's former personal lawyer, whose home, office, and hotel room were raided by FBI agents in April. Originally, the recordings were deemed privileged, but the filing, made in New York's Southern District Court, said "the parties withdrew their designations of 'privileged,'" meaning prosecutors could listen to them as part of their investigation into Cohen, Politico reports.
On Friday, Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani confirmed to The New York Times that Cohen secretly recorded a 2016 conversation with Trump about payments to Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model who said she had an affair with Trump that ended in 2007. He claimed that this was the first time Trump heard about the payments, and said they were never issued. The filing does not say whether prosecutors have any recordings of Trump and Cohen.
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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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