"President Donald Trump's lawyers have waived attorney-client privilege on his behalf regarding a secretly recorded conversation he had in September 2016 with his former longtime lawyer Michael Cohen..."

"... in which they discussed payments to an ex-Playboy model who says she had an affair with the President, according to sources familiar with the matter. The move comes as an attorney for Cohen openly questioned Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani's claim that the tape showed no wrongdoing by the President, furthering the growing divide between Trump and Cohen, who had once said he'd take a bullet for the President. Trump's lawyers asking on behalf of the President to remove the privilege designation from the recording means that the government now has access to it as part of the US attorney for the Southern District of New York's probe into Cohen. It effectively gives prosecutors the ability to use the recording if they find it relevant to their criminal investigation of Cohen. The prosecutors working on the case had not reviewed the recording because it, along with millions of other documents and files seized in FBI searches of Cohen's home, hotel room and office in April, was undergoing the special master process, in which an independent party reviews whether the items should be regarded as privileged and thus withheld from prosecutors. The special master had designated the recording as privileged...."

CNN reports.

Fascinating game play!

It makes us feel that the tape will show Trump did nothing wrong. But could it be worth it to waive the privilege just to give us that feeling for now? Trump has nothing to hide. Stop guessing about what might be in there that's bad for Trump, because he's waiving the privilege. The effect at this point is valuable enough that I'm still suspicious that the tape contains something that might at least arguably show wrongdoing. But that's a question that will unfold at some later date, and when it come time to argue about whatever's in the tape, the question whether it shows wrongdoing will be analyzed by minds that have been prepped by Trump's previous waiving of the privilege and therefore susceptible to the argument that no wrongdoing is shown.

I hope that's not the most abstruse thing I've ever written on this blog!

ADDED: CNN seems to contradict itself:

1. Rudy Giuliani (Trump's lawyer now) said the tape has Cohen and Trump "discussing potential payments to former Playboy model Karen McDougal, who alleges Trump an affair with her. Trump denies the allegation."

2. "When the existence of the apparent deal with AMI was first reported by The Wall Street Journal just days before the election, the campaign said that the President was unaware of anything relating to a McDougal payoff, and Hope Hicks—then a spokeswoman—denied that Trump even had an affair with McDougal. But the recording, made two months earlier, suggests otherwise."