Experts tell the Washington Examiner that the tape of President Donald Trump and his one-time attorney Michael Cohen alone does not run afoul of campaign finance laws, with one saying it's not a "smoking gun."
The tape in question, released earlier this week, between Trump and Cohen took place in September 2016. The pair were discussing a payment that would be routed in such a way as to conceal an alleged affair between the president and former Playboy model Karen McDougal.
"I think there could potentially be campaign finance violations, but I don’t think the recording alone is a smoking gun,” Rick Hasen, an election law expert and professor, told the Examiner.
“I don’t think it’s a slam dunk,” Jessica Levinson, a law professor at Loyola Law School, told the Examiner. "If the payment was made for personal reasons, then we’re outside campaign finance contexts. But it looks like the payment was made for campaign finance reasons.”
And that's what prosecutors will have to figure out, the experts said, adding that the evidence available to them is far greater than that one recording.
"I would just caution that we’re seeing a sliver of what prosecutors are seeing,” Hasen told the Examiner.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.