Trump’s family business scrutinized
Feds examining what was known about hush money
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.
But what the prosecutors did not say in Cohen’s sentencing memorandum filed Friday is that they have continued to scrutinize what other executives in the president’s family business may have known about those crimes, which involved hush-money payments to two women who 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 — 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 that 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 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 he leaves office. It is also possible that 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 prosecutors in Manhattan, the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York, declined to comment. Mary Mulligan, a lawyer for Weisselberg, also declined to comment, as did Guy Petrillo, a lawyer for Cohen.
In early September, before Cohen had completed his discussions with prosecutors and before they renewed their records request, Bloomberg reported that they were investigating Trump Organization executives other than Cohen. Last month, Cohen unexpectedly struck a plea deal with Mueller over a new charge that he lied to Congress about plans to build a Trump Tower in Moscow during the presidential campaign. In a court filing the next day, Cohen’s lawyers highlighted how he had spoken on numerous occasions to each of the prosecutorial agencies investigating Trump or his company.
Cohen has told the Southern District prosecutors that he arranged the hush money to the two women at the direction of Trump. In the filing Friday, the prosecutors put the weight of their office behind Cohen’s admission, saying that “with respect to both payments, he acted in coordination with and at the direction of” Trump.
The filing also said Cohen had provided potentially “useful information about matters relating to ongoing investigations being carried out by this office.” It added that prosecutors “assessed Cohen to be forthright and credible, and the information he provided was largely consistent with other evidence gathered,” a potentially problematic sign for the Trump Organization.
Though Trump’s lawyers declined to comment, people close to the president argue that Cohen would not be sentenced now if he had substantially more to offer to investigators — and they note that Friday’s memorandum cited Cohen’s “pattern of deception that permeated his professional life.” What’s more, people who have worked for the Southern District have said prosecutors might say things in a sentencing memo that they would not try to pursue as a separate case.
Trump lashed out at Cohen on Twitter in recent days, saying, “He lied for this outcome and should, in my opinion, serve a full and complete sentence.”
One of the campaign finance charges Cohen pleaded guilty to centered on him paying $130,000 to adult film actress Stormy Daniels, who said she had an affair with Trump. The payment amounted to an excessive contribution to Trump’s campaign, prosecutors said, arguing that her silence helped his election chances and that campaign finance law prohibits individuals from donating more than $2,700 to a presidential candidate in the general election.
Cohen also pleaded guilty to “causing” an illegal corporate donation to Trump when he urged American Media, which publishes the National Enquirer, to buy the rights to a former Playboy model’s story of an affair with Trump. The deal effectively silenced the model, Karen McDougal, for the remainder of the campaign.
Cohen has also told the prosecutors in Manhattan that Weisselberg, who is one of Trump’s longtime loyalists, was involved in discussions about how to pay Daniels, according to a person briefed on the matter. Cohen linked him to the deal with American Media as well.
During the campaign, Cohen recorded a conversation he had with Trump about buying the rights to negative information that American Media had collected on Trump. Cohen told Trump, who did not know he was being recorded, that “I’ve spoken to Allen Weisselberg about how to set the whole thing up.” The deal was signed by American Media and Cohen, according to court papers. But a person familiar with the arrangement said Trump balked at reimbursing America Media, as had been agreed to, and that the media company was never reimbursed in relation to McDougal.
But after the campaign, Weisselberg handled reimbursing Cohen for the payment to Daniels, according to people briefed on the matter. 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 It would be an impeachable offense if President Donald Trump were proved to have told his lawyer to pay hush money during the campaign to women who claimed to have had affairs with him, but that doesn’t mean he should necessarily be impeached, the Democrat set to lead the House Judiciary Committee said Sunday.
Those are “two different considerations,” Jerrold Nadler of New York said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “You don’t necessarily launch an impeachment against the president because he committed an impeachable offense.” Lawmakers should consider whether an action was important enough to warrant what’s in effect an attempt to overturn the election, which should be done “only for very serious situations,” Nadler said. Still, “the new Congress will not try to shield the president,” as Republicans have, he said.
Nadler also said he wants to pass legislation to extend the deadline for prosecuting the president until after he leaves office, in case the Justice Department sticks to its legal opinion that a sitting president can’t be indicted. 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 they really were campaign expenditures, prosecutors say.
Weisselberg spoke with the prosecutors from Manhattan this year when they were investigating Cohen. It is unclear what he said, and it is believed that he spoke on the condition that his statements could not be used against him.
One person familiar with Weisselberg’s work at the Trump Organization, who was not authorized to speak on his behalf, suggested that he may not have known the purpose of Cohen’s reimbursements, noting that Cohen often did personal legal work for the president and his family. That kind of work was generally performed with few if any questions asked, the person said.