Michael Cohen, personal attorney for U.S. President Donald Trump, talks to reporters as he departs after meeting with Senate Intelligence Committee staff as the panel investigates alleged Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S. September 19, 2017. (Photo: Reuters)
President Donald Trump ripped NBC early Friday over its retracted report claiming the phone lines of his attorney Michael Cohen had been wiretapped leading up to the raid.
“NBC NEWS is wrong again!” President Trump tweeted. “They cite ‘sources’ which are constantly wrong. Problem is, like so many others, the sources probably don’t exist, they are fabricated, fiction! NBC, my former home with the Apprentice, is now as bad as Fake News CNN. Sad!”
Initially, the outlet reported that Mr. Cohen’s phones were wiretapped prior to the FBI raiding his home, office and hotel room last month. The news organization claimed to have two solid sources. Further, the story claimed at least one conversation was with the White House.
In response, the media spent the day speculating whether the FBI had President Trump and Mr. Cohen on tape. But Chuck Todd announced they issued a correction to the original report on Thursday.
Investigators were only logging phone numbers, but not listening in. Federal investigators used what’s known as a pen register, or a dialed number recorder (DNR), on at least one of Mr. Cohen’s phones. The device only records all numbers dialed from a given phone number, and the length of calls.
Mr. Cohen is under criminal investigation surrounding his personal business dealings, which include a $130,000 payment made in the weeks prior to the election to adult film star Stormy Daniels in exchange for her silence over an alleged sexual encounter with President Trump in 2006.
Rudy Giuliani, a former U.S. attorney who now represents President Trump, said he has looked at the receipts and the payment was a personal reimbursement for monthly expenses, not an illegal campaign expense or in-kind donation.
The President’s enemies, including in the media, were hoping the complete opposite was true.
