Reuters
Contrary to an earlier report, NBC News said Thursday afternoon that the feds monitored — but did not wiretap — phones used by President Donald Trump’s personal attorney.
The network corrected its report live on MSNBC and one of the reporters who wrote the story tweeted an update.
“Correction: Michael Cohen’s calls are being monitored but not being listened to. Pen register and not wiretap,” reporter Julia Ainsley wrote.
The original report claimed that investigators were eavesdropping on Cohen’s conversations during the weeks leading up to the FBI’s April 9 raids on his offices, home and hotel room.
The network also said investigators intercepted a call between one of Cohen’s phones and the White House.
Trump called Cohen on April 13 to “check in” following the raids, the New York Times reported last month.
The original NBC report cited two people with knowledge of the legal proceedings involving Cohen, who is under investigation regarding a $130,000 payment he made to porn star Stormy Daniels shortly before the 2016 presidential election.
Trump was advised by members of his legal team not to speak with Cohen following the FBI raids, a person familiar with the discussion told NBC.
Former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who joined Trump’s legal team late last month, also learned that Trump had called Cohen days after the raids, and told him never to do so again because the call might be recorded by the feds, two sources close to Giuliani told NBC.
On Wednesday night, Giuliani told Fox News host Sean Hannity that Trump had paid back Cohen for the money Cohen gave Daniels.
Trump last month denied any knowledge of that payment, which Daniels says was intended to buy her silence about her claimed affair with Trump in 2006.
The president on Thursday morning tweeted that Cohen “received a monthly retainer, not from the campaign and having nothing to do with the campaign, from which he entered into, through reimbursement, a private contract between two parties, known as a non-disclosure agreement, or NDA.”
“These agreements are very common among celebrities and people of wealth,” Trump wrote, adding that it “was used to stop the false and extortionist accusations made by her about an affair, despite already having signed a detailed letter admitting that there was no affair.”