Cohen Recorded Trump Discussing Payments To Playboy Model: NYT

Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump's former lawyer, recorded a conversation with Trump two months before the election about making payments to a Playboy model, The New York Times reports.

According to the Times, the former Playboy model, Karen McDougal, said she had an affair with Trump in 2006.

The recording was seized by the FBI in a raid on Cohen's office, the Times reports. Officials are investigating Cohen's role in making payments to women to suppress stories about Trump leading up to the 2016 election and whether those payments violated campaign finance laws.

The raid on Cohen's office was the result of a referral from the office of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III to federal prosecutors in Manhattan. Rudy Giuliani, Trump's lawyer, told the Times that the payments were discussed on tape but that the payment was never made.

Cohen has already acknowledged making a $130,000 payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels, who said she had an affair with Trump in 2006. After The Wall Street Journal reported in January that Daniels reached a non-disclosure agreement with Cohen before the 2016 election, Trump said he didn't know about the payment or why it was made before acknowledging in a financial disclosure form that he reimbursed Cohen for that amount.

In recent months, Trump has moved to distance himself from Cohen, saying that the investigation surrounding Cohen had to do with his business dealings and not the work Cohen did for the president.

Cohen, who was seen as extremely loyal to Trump, said in a recent interview with ABC News that if prosecutors forced him to choose between protecting the president or protecting his family, his family is his first priority.

Read the full report via The New York Times here.

Patch will update this report.

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