Wednesday on Fox News Channel’s “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” George Washington law professor Jonathan Turley criticized former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen for the audio he recorded of Donald Trump that was aired on a broadcast of CNN’s “Cuomo Prime Time” a night early.
Turley said it probably passed a legal standard, but would not pass an ethical standard.
“It is likely within the law in the sense that New York is a one-party consent state,” Turley said. “So, as long as Cohen is a consenting party on the in conversation, he makes it under the wire. The ethics issue is much more serious. I consider this to be a flagrantly dishonest and disloyal act by a lawyer. It’s not the first time I have been shocked frankly by Michael Cohen’s style of practice if you can call it that. But, most lawyers would find this deeply unethical. The ABA years ago lowered the standard. At one time, this would be a clear unethical act under the ABA rules, under state rules. The ABA created an unambiguous standard, but the interesting thing is New York was one of those jurisdictions that have been very strong on this type of secret taping.”
“They did say in 2003 that it’s not immediately, clearly unethical,” he continued. “But they said that because sometimes a lawyer might have to tape it something because of the great societal risk that a conversation might have. But they said you can’t do this as a routine matter. That would be unethical. And this strikes me as well over the line as to what he has done.”
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor
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