Trump’s former personal lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen met with Wednesday with federal and state law enforcement officials investigating Trump’s family business and charitable foundation, according to a new report.
The meeting, which took place at the Manhattan office of Cohen’s attorney, Guy Petrillo, could mark a significant development in the investigation into Trump’s financial and business dealings, which is separate from special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.
According to CNN, Cohen and his lawyer met with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York and officials from the New York Attorney General’s office. Both offices are involved in investigating the Trump Foundation and the Trump Organization.
While the purpose of the meeting was not immediately clear, Cohen almost certainly possesses a lot of information that would be of interest to prosecutors looking into Trump’s financial and business dealings, given his former position in Trump’s inner circle and within the upper ranks of the family business.
Cohen, who once said that he would take a “bullet” for Trump, agreed to cooperate with investigators after entering into a plea deal in August.
As part of that agreement, Cohen pleaded guilty to eight felony charges, including one count of campaign finance violations stemming from the hush money payments he facilitated to two women who allegedly had sexual encounters with Trump.
At the time of his guilty plea, Cohen told a U.S. District Court judge that the illegal payments were made at the direction of the “candidate” in exchange for the women’s silence.
With his sentencing scheduled for December, Cohen has offered to cooperate with all law enforcement agencies investigating Trump or his businesses.
The Manhattan U.S. Attorney’s office is currently investigating whether anyone at the Trump Organization other than Cohen engaged in campaign finance violations or other unlawful behavior.
In a separate case, the New York attorney general’s office filed a civil lawsuit against the Trump Foundation for engaging in “persistently illegal conduct,” including calling itself a charity while actually serving as a “personal piggy bank” for Trump.
On top of his cooperation with prosecutors in New York, Cohen has also reportedly spent hours meeting with Mueller’s team.
With Cohen now giving up the goods, Trump is desperately trying to distance himself from his former lawyer and fixer. In an interview published Tuesday, Trump referred to Cohen as a “PR person who did small legal work” — a far cry from his previous statements praising Cohen and describing him as a close family friend, businessman, and personal attorney.
Of course, Trump has good reason to be nervous about Cohen talking to prosecutors. As the keeper of Trump’s secrets and the fixer of his problems, Cohen may very well know more about Trump’s financial and business dealings than Trump himself.
And now, prosecutors will be privy to those secrets, too.
Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.
