If Cohen, the president's longtime personal attorney, made it a practice of recording his conversations, he might have recorded conversations with clients, as well as with adversaries. If he recorded client conversations, then he could have recorded conversations with his client, Trump. Trump in legal battle over Michael Cohen FBI raid
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Michael Cohen's attorney says a secretly recorded conversation in 2016 shows Donald Trump mentioning "cash" in relation to a possible payment involving a former Playboy model who alleges she had a year-long affair with Trump.
But Davis told NBC News: "Let's not forget what the big picture is and not get caught up in what Trump and Giuliani want us to do, which is to get diverted by those very questions: the idiocy of 'cash doesn't mean money,' or 'he meant something else other than cash.'
The answer to that is less clear-cut, the Washington Post reports. The recording was legal because Cohen and Trump were in New York, a one-party consent state. That means only one person needs to be aware of the recording—and that person can be the one making the tape.
The ABA Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility initially concluded in a 1974 ethics opinion that the ethical ban on dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation generally prevented lawyers from recording any conversation without the prior knowledge of all parties to the conversation.
The opinion said the committee was unanimous, however, “in concluding that it is almost always advisable for a lawyer to inform a client that a conversation is being or may be recorded, before recording such a conversation.”.
The new opinion said lawyers who record conversations without the knowledge of other parties don’t necessarily violate the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct. But lawyers may not record conversations in jurisdictions that make it illegal, the opinion says.
But ethics opinions are divided on whether secretly recording a client is an ethics violation, including opinions by various bar associations within New York state, according to the Post. Even the ABA committee that issues ethics opinions has reversed course on the broader issue of secret recordings by lawyers, ...
Rebecca Roiphe, a professor at New York Law School, told the newspaper that recording clients “is definitely unusual and almost always a really bad idea.”. But depending on the circumstances “it’s not necessarily a clear ethical violation,” she added. Give us feedback, share a story tip or update, or report an error.
Trump shortly before the 2016 presidential election in which they discussed a possible payment to Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model who alleges she had an affair with Mr. Trump in 2006.
Mr. Trump, via a White House statement in February, denied having an affair with McDougal. The news of the recording comes at a time when Cohen has been under considerable pressure to cooperate with federal investigators in special counsel Robert Mueller's probe of Russian meddling and any ties to Trump associates.
Trump waived that privilege. The source with knowledge also said Cohen's recording of the tape was not illegal, as New York is a one-party consent state for recordings.