Feds shift focus
Prosecutors look into president’s business for possible violations
Finished with attorney Michael Cohen, federal prosecutors now are looking at President Donald Trump’s family business for possible criminal violations.
When federal prosecutors recommended a substantial prison term for President Donald Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, they linked Trump to the crimes Cohen had committed in connection with the 2016 presidential campaign.
What the prosecutors did not say in Cohen’s sentencing memorandum filed Friday, however, is that they have continued to scrutinize what other executives in the president’s family business may have known about those crimes, which involved hushmoney payments to two women who had said they had affairs with Trump.
After Cohen pleaded guilty in August to breaking campaign finance laws and other crimes — he will be sentenced Wednesday — the federal prosecutors in Manhattan shifted their attention to what role, if any, Trump Organization executives played in the campaign finance violations, according to people briefed on the matter.
Cohen, Trump’s self-described fixer, has provided assistance in that inquiry, which is separate from the investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller.
In addition to implicating Trump in the payments to the two women, Cohen has told prosecutors that the company’s chief financial officer was involved in discussions about them, a claim that is now a focus of the inquiry, according to the people who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing.
Cohen has told prosecutors that he believes Trump personally approved the company’s decision to reimburse him for one of the payments, one of the people said.
Neither the chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, nor any other executives at the Trump Organization have been accused of wrongdoing, and there is no indication that anyone at the company will face charges in connection with the inquiry.
But in recent weeks, the prosecutors contacted the company to renew a request they had made this year for documents and other materials, according to the people. The precise nature of the materials sought was unclear, but the renewed request is further indication that prosecutors continue to focus on the president’s company even as the case against Cohen comes to a close, the people said.
At the time of the payments to the two women, Trump was the head of the company, and although he turned over its management to his elder sons, he still owns it through a trust. While the prevailing view at the Justice Department is that a sitting president cannot be indicted, the prosecutors in Manhattan could consider charging him after leaving office. It is also possible the prosecutors could seek his testimony before he leaves office if they continue the investigation into anyone else who might have had a role in the crimes, a person briefed on the matter said.
A spokeswoman for the Trump Organization did not respond to requests for comment.
A spokesman for the federal prosecutors in Manhattan, the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York, declined to comment. A lawyer for Weisselberg, Mary E. Mulligan, also declined to comment, as did Guy Petrillo, a lawyer for Cohen.
In early 2017, Cohen sought to recoup the $130,000 he paid out of his own pocket to Daniels as well as $50,000 he spent on a technology company in connection with the campaign, prosecutors have said.
Not only did the Trump Organization repay those expenses, but it agreed to pay taxes Cohen might have incurred on the reimbursements. This decision to “gross up” Cohen went against the Trump Organization’s typical reimbursement practices, people briefed on the matter said.
The company also agreed to pay Cohen a $60,000 bonus. (Cohen left the company once Trump became president). In total, the company paid Cohen $420,000, doled out in monthly installments of $35,000. In internal documents, the company “falsely accounted” for the payments as “legal expenses,” when, in fact, they were campaign expenditures, prosecutors say.