Avenatti says Cohen has more Trump tapes

  • Michael Avenatti, the attorney representing porn star Stormy Daniels, said on ABC's "This Week" that President Donald Trump's former personal attorney had multiple recordings of conversations with Trump.

  • Avenatti also said he knows the "substance of some of the tapes".

  • The New York Times reported Friday that Cohen had recorded a conversation with then-presidential candidate Trump about a payment to former Playboy model Karen McDougal.


Michael Avenatti, the attorney representing porn star Stormy Daniels, said Sunday that President Donald Trump's former personal attorney had multiple recordings of conversations with Trump, and that he knew what was on some of them.

Appearing on ABC's "This Week", Avenatti said he can confirm there are multiple tapes Cohen made during his decade of work with Trump, in addition to the one that The New York Times revealed on Friday, in which then-candidate Trump talked about a payment to former Playboy model Karen McDougal.

"First of all, this is not the only tape," Avenatti said. "I can tell you that for a fact. There's multiple tapes."

Avenatti defended his revelation and demanded a clear statement from the Trump administration.

"My accuracy rate over the last six months has been spot on in this case," Avenatti said. "Let me tell you this, if I'm wrong, then why don't we have Mr. Trump or his attorneys come forward today, right now and claim there are no other tapes?"

Trump said Saturday it was "totally unheard of & perhaps illegal" for a "lawyer to tape a client."

"Inconceivable that the government would break into a lawyer's office (early in the morning) - almost unheard of," Trump tweeted. "Even more inconceivable that a lawyer would tape a client - totally unheard of & perhaps illegal. The good news is that your favorite President did nothing wrong!"

Yet an anonymous source told CNBC on Saturday it was Trump's legal team that waived the right to have the tape to remain hidden from prosecutors.

When pressed by Alan Dershowitz, a professor emeritus at Harvard Law School, on why he would have access to recordings by Cohen, Avenatti rebuked Dershowitz's assertion that the tapes might be "lawyer-client privileged material".

"All of the information that the FBI seized, that's not under lock and key," Avenatti said. "The only way that it would be improper for me to have it is if I got it from the FBI or somebody in law enforcement. There's a host of other ways I could have obtained that information ... I could have received it from Michael Cohen; I could have received it from Michael Cohen's counsel; I could have received it from others."

When host George Stephanopoulos asked again about Avenatti's knowledge of the tapes, Avenatti said he knows "the substance of some of the tapes."

Watch the full exchange on ABC »

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