Prosecutors say they have a recording of Trump and a witness in Manhattan DA case
Prosecutors in New York have knowledgeable attorneys for Donald Trump that the proof in their hush money case towards the previous president consists of an audio recording of him and a witness, a court docket submitting made public Friday exhibits.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s workplace made the disclosure in a submitting this week known as an computerized discovery kind and mentioned the proof had already been disclosed to Trump’s attorneys.
The submitting doesn’t establish the witness or say when the recording was made or when Trump’s legal professionals have been made conscious of it. NBC News has reached out to attorneys and a spokesperson for Trump for a response.
A key witness in the case, former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, beforehand launched a secretly taped audio recording of a dialogue he had with Trump concerning the hush cash funds in 2016. It’s unclear if the recording referred to in the court docket submitting is identical one.
The submitting is dated this previous Tuesday — the identical day Trump made a virtual appearance in Manhattan felony court docket to be formally notified about a protecting order barring him from talking publicly about proof his legal professionals have been slated to obtain from the DA’s workplace.
Trump was charged final month with 34 counts of falsifying enterprise information and has pleaded not guilty. The fees contain hush cash funds to adult film star Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal towards the tip of his 2016 presidential marketing campaign to stop them from talking about their allegations of affairs with him.
Trump has denied having affairs with each ladies.
In the beforehand disclosed recorded September 2016 dialog between Trump and Cohen, the pair could be heard discussing construction funds to McDougal. At one level, Trump seems to ask “what financing?” and appears to ask “pay with cash?”
Cohen responds, “No, no, no, no, no, no, I got …” earlier than Trump is heard saying the phrase “check.”
The submitting mentioned a number of different recordings that do not straight embrace Trump will even be turned over to his protection workforce, together with telephone conversations between two unidentified witnesses, a telephone dialog “between a witness and a third party” and “various recordings saved on a witness’s cell phones.”
Other proof consists of unidentified statements from quite a few books on or involving the previous president, together with books by Cohen, Daniels, former U.S. Attorney General William Barr, former Trump adviser and present son-in-law Jared Kushner and 5 of Trump’s personal books.
The case is scheduled to go to trial on March 25, 2024.