NEW YORK — Former Donald Trump lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen met Tuesday with Manhattan prosecutors — a signal that the former president is still in the district attorney’s crosshairs.
The meeting, Cohen’s first with prosecutors in over a year, lasted 2 1/2 hours. It was Cohen’s first sit-down with the Manhattan DA’s office since District Attorney Alvin Bragg took over in January 2022, said two sources familiar with the meeting.
Cohen met more than a dozen times with prosecutors who worked under Bragg’s predecessor, former DA Cy Vance.
“I remain committed to assisting in the investigation,” Cohen told the New York Daily News after the meeting. “I remain committed to providing any information or documentation that I can.”
Cohen and his lawyer Lanny Davis declined to comment on the substance of the meeting. But a source with knowledge of what was discussed told the Daily News prosecutors were focused on a hush-money payment Cohen made to porn star Stormy Daniels in the lead-up to the 2016 presidential election on the then-candidate’s behalf.
Cohen served three years in federal confinement after pleading guilty in August 2018 to his role in the payoffs, made on the eve of the 2016 election. He admitted to paying off Daniels, who said she had an affair with Trump in 2006, and former Playboy model Karen McDougal, who said she had an affair with Trump in 2006 and 2007.
In return for the money, both women agreed to maintain silence about the alleged affair.
In his federal case, Cohen admitted that both payments were made “for the principal purpose of influencing” the 2016 presidential election. He infamously identified Trump in his plea as “individual one.”
Among other areas of interest, the Manhattan DA is also scrutinizing as many 11 checks Trump allegedly directed to Cohen reimbursing him for the hush-money payments, said the source familiar with Tuesday’s meeting. The checks were detailed in Cohen’s testimony before the House Oversight Committee in February 2019.
At least one check for $35,000 was paid out of Trump’s personal checking account when he was president in 2017, which Cohen displayed during his House testimony.
The DA is also looking into potential insurance fraud based on evidence unearthed in New York Attorney General Letitia James’ civil lawsuit against the Trump Organization, CNN reported.
Manhattan prosecutors won a conviction against the Trump Organization on tax fraud charges in December after a six-week trial. The company’s chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, pleaded guilty in the case in August and was sentenced to five months in jail last week. The company was ordered to pay $1.6 million in fines, the maximum under the law.
Cohen previously expressed frustration over Vance’s departure, and said the DA’s office stopped calling him.
Davis said he and his client were disappointed when two investigators Vance hired to head the probe, Mark Pomerantz and Carey Dunne, abruptly resigned in February 2022, citing Bragg’s hesitancy to indict Trump.
“But we believe that this group of prosecutors that we met with today under Mr. Bragg’s leadership are serious and knowledgeable and have nothing but following the facts and the law in mind,” Davis told the Daily News.
Manhattan DA spokeswoman Danielle Filson declined to comment. Daniels’ attorney Clark Brewster declined to comment.
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