NBC News on Thursday corrected an explosive story that said federal authorities had wiretapped Michael Cohen, President Trump’s personal lawyer, reports CNN Money. The correction was announced on MSNBC during “Meet the Press Daily” by the story’s reporter, Tom Winter. He said federal officials told him that it “was not a wiretap” but instead a “pen register.” “In plain English, that means it was a log of phone calls that were made from specific phone line — from a specific phone line or specific phone lines,” Winter said. Calling it an “important distinction,” Winter explained that a pen register meant authorities were “not able to listen in in real-time or record his conversations.” Instead, they were only able to monitor incoming and outgoing calls.
Winter’s initial story about the supposed wiretap cited two sources with knowledge of legal proceedings involving Cohen. ABC News, which had said it had independently confirmed the NBC News report, also issued a correction. Rudy Giuliani, who recently joined Trump’s legal team, had expressed doubt about the accuracy of the NBC News report. Speaking to The Daily Beast, he said, “We don’t believe it’s true.” An April 13 court filing previously revealed that prosecutors in Manhattan had obtained search warrants on multiple email accounts maintained by Cohen. “We already have considerable amounts of information about Mr. Cohen’s activities,” federal prosecutor Thomas McKay said in reference to the search warrants obtained in the investigation.