Michael Cohen court records show investigation isn’t over
WASHINGTON – Federal authorities began investigating President Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, in mid-2017 and suggested their inquiry into crimes he said were ordered by the president remains incomplete, according to court documents unsealed Tuesday.
In hundreds of pages of search warrant applications, the Justice Department said it began examining Cohen’s emails in July 2017 as part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election. That means federal agents were scrutinizing one of Trump’s closest associates far earlier than they had disclosed.
In 2018, agents obtained a raft of court orders authorizing them to search Cohen’s hotel room, office and electronics for evidence of tax and bank fraud, as well as information about what prosecutors said were illegal payments during Trump’s campaign to silence two women who claimed to have had sex with him. Prosecutors said they were investigating a possible conspiracy but didn’t elaborate.
The warrant materials released Tuesday offer the clearest window yet into the early stages of a wide-ranging investigation of one of Trump’s closest aides, his personal attorney and problem solver. In one justification for the searches, authorities said they were searching for evidence of false bank statements, wire fraud, bank fraud and illegal campaign contributions and “conspiracy as it pertains to the other subject offenses.”
Equally revealing were the details prosecutors and a court agreed could remain secret: In one document, laying out details of what prosecutors called “the illegal campaign contribution scheme,” authorities blacked out 18 pages of detail, an indicator that the investigation remains incomplete.
Prosecutors had said they opposed making all of the warrant materials public because doing so “would jeopardize an ongoing investigation and prejudice the privacy rights of uncharged third parties.”
Cohen, a longtime Trump loyalist who once declared he would “take a bullet” for the president, said Trump directed him to set up the hush-money payments, and in testimony before Congress, he accused the president of participating in a criminal conspiracy.
Cohen told lawmakers he has been in “constant contact” with federal prosecutors in New York about unspecified cases. He has cooperated with the authorities in the Russia investigation and in the separate inquiry into the payments to porn star Stormy Daniels and former Playboy Playmate Karen McDougal.
Trump and congressional Republicans questioned Cohen’s credibility. Trump has dismissed the Mueller investigation as a “witch hunt” and called the congressional investigations “presidential harassment.”
In outlining their requests for information, prosecutors noted the need to keep the inquiry secret, asserting that “premature public disclosure of this affidavit or the requested warrants could alert (Cohen) … causing him to destroy evidence, flee from prosecution or otherwise seriously jeopardize the investigation.” Prosecutors urged a federal judge to direct targets of the warrants – information service providers and others – not to disclose the existence of the warrants for at least 180 days.