New York Post

Cohen’s records public

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The feds have made public nearly 900 pages of court papers tied to their investigat­ion of Michael Cohen on Tuesday — but not before redacting a trove of informatio­n about his admitted campaign-finance violations on behalf of President Trump.

The documents, made public in response to a petition from The Post and other media organizati­ons, included lengthy FBI applicatio­ns to target the locations of Cohen’s cellphones and search his e-mail accounts, electronic devices, office, home and hotel room — triggering the April 9 raids on Cohen.

The paperwork revealed that special counsel Robert Mueller began investigat­ing Trump’s former personal lawyer and “fixer” no later than July 2017, and that the FBI found he was $22 million in debt over the purchase of 32 taxi medallions that plunged in value from $1 million each to around $200,000 due to competitio­n from Uber and Lyft.

While renegotiat­ing payments on those loans, Cohen hid the fact that he raked in more than $3 million in shady consulting fees following Trump’s election, including nearly $600,000 from an investment firm with ties to since-sanctioned Russian oligarch Viktor Veksleberg, the papers say.

But Manhattan federal Judge William Pauley III let prosecutor­s hide details of the Cohen-arranged hush payoffs to porn star Stormy Daniels and former Playboy Playmate Karen McDougal, resulting in redactions of up to 19 consecutiv­e pages.

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