CNN has exclusive coverage of the first Cohen tape and Seth Abramson has done an interesting and perspicacious analysis.
REASON #2: A BAD PRIVILEGE WAIVER. Trump waiving attorney-client privilege to let Giuliani spread *false* info about the tape not only backfired by convincing Cohen's lawyer to release the tape, it could also hamstring Trump's claims of privilege on the McDougal matter later on.
— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) July 25, 2018
REASON #4: THE AUDIO ESTABLISHES MOTIVE. CNN edited the audio to exclude some inculpatory moments—notably, Trump telling Cohen, of damning info on his past relationships, "all you've got to do is delay it for [inaudible]." That helps establish this as an *election*-related plot.
— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) July 25, 2018
REASON #6: THE FULL AUDIO ESTABLISHES CONTEXT. CNN appears to have wrongly attributed a reference to "David" as meaning David Pecker, head of AMI. But when Cohen talks about "information regarding our friend 'David'" he's referring to Trump's alias for adulteries, David Dennison.
— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) July 25, 2018
REASON #8: TRUMP CLEARLY PROPOSES AN ILLICIT CASH PAYMENT. Trump's state of mind—one-half what makes up a crime—is established by his comment about Ivana's divorce filings, but also by his *clear* attempt to propose an untraceable cash payment rather than (as Cohen says) a check.
— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) July 25, 2018
REASON #10: THE TAPE SUGGESTS MANY WOMEN, NOT JUST A FEW. Cohen repeatedly says that he needs to set up a company to deal with "all the stuff, all the stuff," which tells Americans that *many* more women than Karen McDougal were paid off by Trump pre-election—as Bannon has said.
— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) July 25, 2018
BONUS REASON #2: A WOMAN. Though this is a very minor point, Trump's comment about Ivana—"you've got a woman who doesn't want it unsealed"—underscores how he speaks about women in private. Calling his first wife and the mother of three of his kids "a woman" is unsettling to hear.
— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) July 25, 2018
BONUS REASON #4: GIVE IT TO ME. When Cohen raises using a shell corp to handle "all the information regarding our friend David [Dennison]"—the lies Trump told about his adulterous affairs—Trump says, cryptically, "give it to me," underscoring how involved he was and wanted to be.
— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) July 25, 2018
CONCLUSION: Don't believe Trump's surrogates, stooges, or clandestine adviser-pundits: this is hard evidence of an election felony. The tape establishes motive, context, and state of mind for hiding from the FEC and voters unreported campaign contributions made by Cohen to Trump.
— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) July 25, 2018
CNN obtained the tape of the Cohen-Trump conversation about paying off the story of Donald's affair with playmate Karen McDougal. Here the first part of it, which was just played live on @ChrisCuomo's show. h/t @atrupar pic.twitter.com/VcSsKvjyQ2
— #MarchForTruth (@MarchForTruth17) July 25, 2018
