Prosecutors say they have a recording of Trump and a witness in Manhattan DA case
Prosecutors in New York have informed Donald Trump’s attorneys that evidence in their hush-money case against the former president includes an audio recording of him and a witness, according to a court filing released on Friday.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office made the disclosure this week in a filing called an automatic form of disclosure, saying the evidence has already been released to Trump’s attorneys.
The filing does not identify the witness, specify when the recording was made, or when Trump’s attorneys became aware of it. NBC News has reached out to lawyers and a spokesman for Trump for a response.
A key witness in the case, former Trump attorney Michael Cohen, previously released a secretly recorded audio recording of a discussion he had with Trump about the 2016 hush money payments. It is unclear whether the record referred to in the court filing is the same.
The filing is dated last Tuesday — the same day Trump appeared virtually before the Manhattan Criminal Court to be formally briefed on a safeguards order barring him from speaking publicly about evidence his attorneys from the Attorney’s Office should receive.
Trump was charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records last month and pleaded not guilty. The charges involve paying hush money to adult film star Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal towards the end of his 2016 presidential campaign to prevent them from speaking out about their alleged affairs with him.
Trump has denied having affairs with either woman.
In the previously released recorded conversation between Trump and Cohen in September 2016, the pair can be heard discussing how payments to McDougal should be structured. At one point, Trump appears to ask, “What funding?” and appears to ask, “Pay with cash?”
Cohen replies, “No, no, no, no, no, no, I have…” before Trump says the word “check.”
The filing said several other records not directly relating to Trump are also being turned over to his defense team, including phone calls between two unidentified witnesses, a phone call “between a witness and a third party,” and “various recordings stored on a… “. cell phones of the witness.
Other evidence includes unidentified testimony from numerous books about or involving the former president, including books by Cohen, Daniels, former US Attorney General William Barr, former Trump adviser turned son-in-law Jared Kushner, and five of Trump’s own books .
The case is scheduled to be heard on March 25, 2024.
