The Manhattan district attorney’s office is mulling whether to pursue criminal charges against the Trump Organization and two of its top officials for how they accounted for money Michael Cohen paid one woman who said she had sexual relations with Trump, according to a report published late Thursday.
Officials are still in the early stages of deciding whether to go after Trump’s billion-dollar company for how it reimbursed Cohen for paying off porn star Stormy Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford. Investigators are also examining how the Trump Organization reported to the government its reimbursement of Cohen, the New York Times reported.
The Trump Organization documented the $130,000 it gave Cohen as a legal expense, but Clifford has said it was to buy her silence in return for signing a nondisclosure agreement that she would not go public with her story.
However, federal prosecutors recently said the reimbursement payment was for a bogus legal invoice that Cohen never submitted to the campaign because he was never actually retained by the campaign on this issue. Documents show Cohen was paid $420,000 by the campaign.
The New York office is interested in learning if Trump officials purposely lied on business records with the intent to defraud or did so to commit or conceal another crime. Each of those crimes range between misdemeanors and low-level felonies.
Cohen pleaded guilty Tuesday to eight charges, including willfully causing an unlawful corporate contribution in 2016 and making an excessive campaign contribution in 2016. Those charges are in reference to his paying porn star Stormy Daniels in return for not speaking out about having had an affair with Trump early in his marriage with Melania Trump.
