Michael CohenPresident Donald Trump‘s personal attorney, has a long history of protecting his client, and NPR shed further light on this on Thursday by releasing a series of audio recordings of Cohen’s statements and legal threats.

Michael Cohen Tapes Leaked

Cohen made several legal threats to help Trump in a 2015 interview with the Daily Beast with Tim Mak, who now works for NPR.

Michael Avenatti — the lawyer of porn star Stormy Danielswho is suing Trump and Cohen for defamation regarding a 2006 affair with Trump — said on CNN this week that he is convinced Trump’s voice is heard alongside Cohen’s on some of the recordings.

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Avenatti also recently told NPR that Trump coerced Daniels into signing the non-disclosure agreement about their affair. The adult film actress has said the pact is invalid because the former Apprentice star never signed it.

“In October of 2016, Michael Cohen made threats against my client Stormy Daniels, as it related to pressuring her to enter into the NDA and accept the $130,000 payment,” Avenatti said, although he did not provide any further information about the matter.

Cohen has been described by many pundits as a “fixer” because of his history of engaging in tough behavior to protect Trump.

Sam Nunberg, who served as an adviser to the president in the early part of his 2016 campaign, told NPR that Trump often pressured his personal lawyer to treat people roughly to make his problems disappear, and that Cohen sometimes felt remorseful about his actions.

“He was supposed to say and act the way Donald wanted him to act,” Nunberg said. “Michael had even expressed sometimes regret that he did certain things, or had to send nasty emails, or give nasty phone calls to certain reporters that he personally liked — because it was at the direction of Donald.”

One of the inflammatory claims Cohen is heard making in the recordings — and over which Avenatti heavily criticized him on Twitter — concerned the definition and legality of spousal rape. The issue was raised because of a claim that Trump’s former wife, Ivana Trump, made in 1993 that Donald Trump had raped her four years prior.

“You’re talking about Donald Trump, you’re talking about the front-runner for the GOP, presidential candidate, as well as private individual, who never raped anybody and of course understand that by the very definition you can’t rape your spouse,” Cohen is heard saying in one recording.

Cohen later issued a public apology in July 2015 for his comments about spousal rape.

“Mr. Trump must be so proud of his right hand “fixer” Mr. Cohen and his outrageous tactics,” Avenatti said in a tweet on Thursday. “Not to mention the fact that Mr. Cohen claims there is nothing prohibiting spousal rape (WRONG)! Will he ever hire an attorney that knows the law?”

“I’m warning you, tread very f—ing lightly because what I’m going to do to you is going to be f—ing disgusting. Do you understand me?” Cohen says in one of the tapes.

In another recording, Cohen is heard calling a reporter an “idiot” for writing what he claimed was a ridiculous story, before threatening to hit him with a $500 million lawsuit “like [he] did to Univision.” This referred to Cohen’s suit of the Spanish-language network over its dropping of Trump’s Miss USA pageant due to his offensive comments about Mexican immigrants in 2015, just days after he first announced his campaign for president.

 

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