Michael Avenatti, the lawyer of adult star Stormy Daniels in her case against Donald Trump and his former attorney Michael Cohen, said he would absolutely consider representing the latter if he provided investigators with more audio recordings which would be detrimental to the president, according to The Hill .
On Friday, the New York Times made the bombshell revelation that Cohen, one of Trump’s most trusted allies over the years, had secretly recorded their conversation about paying former Playboy model Karen McDougal to not reveal details about her affair with Trump in 2006, just a few months after Melania Trump had given birth to Barron Trump.
Prosecutors are interested in knowing whether or not Cohen broke campaign finance laws by paying McDougal, and if Trump knew about the payment. While the White House had earlier claimed that Trump had no idea about any payments made to former models — calling it the fabrication of “fake news” media — the new report quashed that idea once and for all.
And now Avenatti, buoyed by the news that the FBI is in possession of at least one such tape which was secretly recorded by Cohen, told MSNBC ‘s Ari Melber that he is absolutely certain that Trump’s former ally has more damaging tapes in his possession — possibly even one where the two discussed the $130,000 payment made to Stormy Daniels for keeping her mouth shut about her affair with Donald Trump.
“I know for a fact that this is not the only tape.”
I’m not at liberty to get into the details relating to what I’ve seen or what I’ve heard, but there are multiple audio recordings, and our position is that they should be released immediately.”
Breaking: @MichaelAvenatti says if Michael Cohen “was prepared to do the right thing”, I would “absolutely consider” representing him.
“Michael Cohen and I had a chance to converse” we had “a very positive meeting” pic.twitter.com/AGA0MTvgmq
— The Beat with Ari Melber ? (@TheBeatWithAri) July 20, 2018
Avenatti said he ran into Cohen on Monday night, following which they had a very “productive” meeting, which could eventually become “critical” for prosecutors investigating whether or not Trump suppressed news stories by paying Daniels and McDougal. He also said that if Cohen decided to become the state’s cooperating witness, which he seems increasingly likely to do, he would be more than happy to represent him.
“If he was prepared to do the right thing, come clean, and basically turn state’s evidence, I would absolutely consider it,” he said. “Michael Cohen and I actually had the chance to converse.”
It is not clear if such a move would be possible legally, considering that Avenatti is already representing Daniels in a case against Cohen, but the increasing affinity between two of Trump’s foes would not come as good news to the president. As the Daily Beast reported after NYT ‘s article, Trump was astounded when he got to know that Cohen had secretly taped him.
“I can’t believe Michael would do this to me,” Trump reportedly said.
But Cohen stated that his wife, daughter, and son come first in an interview with ABC this month, which was seen as a message to Trump to stop seeing him as some sort of a loyal servant who’d never turn against him.
