Former President Donald Trump‘s ex-attorney, Michael Cohen, testified Monday that it was Melania Trump who devised the way to “spin” the Access Hollywood tape as “locker room talk.”
The hot-mic audio tape in which Donald Trump is heard boasting about grabbing women “by the p****” surfaced just one month before the 2016 election and sparked backlash against the then-candidate, although Donald Trump went on to defeat his former opponent, Hillary Clinton. Cohen, who was testifying Monday at Donald Trump’s criminal hush money case, explained how Melania Trump came up with the excuse to dismiss the embarrassing audio that was recorded in September 2005.
“The spin he wanted put on it was that this is locker room talk, something that Melania had recommended, or at least he told me that’s what Melania had thought it was and use that in order to get control over the story and to minimize its impact on him and his campaign,” Cohen said, according to CNN.
Just before the November 2016 election, Donald Trump came out with a statement that called the audio “locker-room banter, a private conversation that took place many years ago.”
Melania Trump told CNN in 2016 that Donald Trump’s language in the tape was inappropriate but said he had been “egged on” by then-Access Hollywood host Billy Bush to delve into “boy talk” with him.
The testimony about the origins of the “spin” for the controversial audio tape came just hours before Cohen began relaying in detail the efforts to facilitate a $130,000 hush money payment to Stormy Daniels weeks before the election after she threatened to come forward with her story of an alleged sexual encounter with Donald Trump.
Cohen also testified on Monday that he had two phone calls with Donald Trump on Oct. 26, 2016, before Cohen went across the street to the bank to make the payment to Daniels’s attorney, Keith Davidson.
“I wanted to ensure that once again he approved what I was doing because I require approval from him on all of this,” Cohen said, adding he would not have gone to the bank without Donald Trump’s approval.
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“Everything required Mr. Trump’s sign-off. On top of that, I wanted the money back,” Cohen said, also disputing that Trump’s repayment of him was a “retainer” fee.
Trump’s defense attorneys have yet to cross-examine Cohen but have signaled their full intent to try and discredit Cohen on almost everything he tells the jury, citing his prior criminal history and the perjury concerns raised in other New York state courts.