Bombshell audio captures Trump and Cohen discussing hush money ‘catch and kill’ plot

For the first time in Donald Trump’s hush money trial, jurors heard the former president’s own voice discussing a deal with his former attorney to buy the silence of a former Playboy model who alleged an affair with Mr Trump.

A portion of the recording – secretly recorded by Michael Cohen while Mr Trump was in the middle of his 2016 campaign for the presidency – was played inside a Manhattan courtroom on Thursday, giving the jury a brief but crucial look into how his “fixer” kept his boss up to date with a scheme that is now central to the criminal case against him.

“I need to open up a company for the transfer of all that info regarding our friend, David, you know, so that – I’m going to do that right away,” Cohen can be heard saying on the recording.

“And I’ve spoken to Allen Weisselberg about how to set the whole thing up,” Cohen says, referencing the now-convicted former chief financial officer for the Trump Organization.

“So, what do we got to pay for this?” Mr Trump can be heard saying. “150?”

That “David” appears to be David Pecker, the former National Enquirer publisher.

In his trial testimony, Mr Pecker admitted to an agreement with Cohen and Mr Trump in August 2015 to buy the rights to politically compromising stories about Mr Trump’s affairs – with no intention of publishing them, a practice known as “catch and kill.”

Two months before Election Day, under Cohen’s direction, Mr Pecker arranged a payment of $150,000 to Karen McDougal, the former model who alleged a 10-month-long affair with Mr Trump a decade earlier.

Mr Pecker was never reimbursed, he told the court.

In his testimony last week, he explained that he entered the contract to buy the rights to her allegations to boost Mr Trump’s chances of winning the 2016 election.

On the recording, Mr Trump can be heard saying: “Well, I’ll have to pay something.”

He suggests paying in “cash.”

Cohen objects, repeatedly saying “no.”

Mr Trump then says “check.”