President Donald J. Trump tweeted today that the federal government’s raid of his former attorney, Michael Cohen, was “inconceivable” but that Cohen’s alleged taping of his conversations with Trump are “totally unheard of & perhaps illegal.”
Inconceivable that the government would break into a lawyer’s office (early in the morning) - almost unheard of. Even more inconceivable that a lawyer would tape a client - totally unheard of & perhaps illegal. The good news is that your favorite President did nothing wrong!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 21, 2018
A report surfaced earlier this week that Cohen supposedly “taped a face-to-face conversation with Donald Trump in which the two men discussed buying the rights to a former Playboy Playmate’s story that she had an affair with Mr. Trump more than a decade ago.”
As for the legality of recording a private conversation, the content of what is on the alleged tape matters. As noted by the Washington Post, "New York is a “one-party consent” state, meaning that in general, it is legal to record a conversation as long as at least one party agrees, even if that person is the one doing the recording. In addition, Trump’s attorneys have not claimed the recording is a privileged attorney-client conversation, a person familiar with the investigation told The Washington Post on Friday."
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The Post also reports that the "The recording, which Cohen made surreptitiously in Trump Tower in early September 2016, was seized by federal agents who are investigating Cohen for potential bank and election-law crimes, according to multiple people familiar with the probe."
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