The federal investigation into whether the Trump Organization was involved in Michael Cohen’s hush money payments to Stormy Daniels is over.
A federal judge revealed today that federal investigators for the Southern District of New York have concluded their investigation, and ordered the information gathered on Cohen’s campaign violations be made public.
U.S. District Judge William Pauley said in a Wednesday court filing that while prosecutors wanted certain parts of the information they’d gathered on Cohen to remain redacted for privacy reasons, he was denying their request and ordering the documents be released in their entirety.
“We are pleased that the investigation surrounding these ridiculous campaign finance allegations is now closed,” said President Trump’s attorney Jay Sekulow in a statement. “We have maintained from the outset that the President never engaged in any campaign finance violation.“
Cohen pleaded guilty to eight different counts, ranging from lying to Congress about the timing of plans for a proposed Trump Tower Moscow to campaign finance violations flowing from hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal. Investigators alleged that the Trump Organization approved reimbursement of hundreds of thousands of dollars paid from Cohen’s business accounts, which were listed as legal expenses rather than hush money payments in official filings. The now-concluded criminal probe centered on whether any other crimes had been committed.
Cohen started a three-year stint in prison in early May following high-profile congressional testimony earlier this year in February, where Cohen tried to connect Trump to a number of scandals.
“The campaign finance violations discussed in the materials are a matter of national importance,” the judge said Wednesday. “Now that the government’s investigation into those violations has concluded, it is time that every American has an opportunity to scrutinize the materials.”
The judge ordered that prosecutors post the documents on the public court docket by 11 a.m. Thursday.
The FBI executed warrants and searched Cohen’s home, hotel room, office, deposit box, cell phones, and electronic communications in April 2018. A number of media outlets — including the New York Times, ABC, CNN, the Associated Press, the New York Post, and others — have been battling in court for full access to the warrants, the warrant applications, and for the underlying materials to be released to the public.
The judge ordered prosecutors to release a redacted version of these documents earlier this year, and they were unsealed with blacked-out sections in March. Those warrants claimed that Cohen participated in an “illegal campaign contribution scheme” and the documents revealed, among other things, that the FBI had access to Cohen’s emails from as early as the beginning of the Trump campaign.
The judge said as recently as May that the redactions were justified due to the “ongoing aspects of the government’s investigation.” Now that the investigation is finished, per the court order, these investigative materials will be released nearly in their entirety.
The only continued redactions that the judge is allowing are the names of law enforcement investigators, individuals who had business dealings with Cohen related to taxi medallions, and private information related to an uncharged third party.
