NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump’s former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen is poised to testify Monday before a Manhattan grand jury investigating money payments he arranged and made to the former president.
Cohen’s upcoming grand jury appearance was confirmed by two people familiar with the matter who were not authorized to speak publicly about grand jury proceedings and did so on condition of anonymity.
Cohen’s closed-door testimony will come at a critical time as the Manhattan district attorney’s office closes in on a decision on whether to seek charges against Trump.
A Trump loyalist turned opponent, Cohen is likely to provide critical details about whether the Republican presidential candidate may have been involved in payments, made in the last week of the 2016 campaign, to two women who allegedly had affairs with him.
Cohen has provided evidence to the prosecution, including audio recordings of conversations with lawyers for one of the women, as well as emails and text messages. She also has a recording of a conversation in which she and Trump talked about a deal to pay another woman through the National Enquirer supermarket tabloid.
Prosecutors appear to be looking into whether Trump committed a crime in the way the payments were made or how they were handled internally at Trump’s company, the Trump Organization.
One of the charges is falsifying business records, a misdemeanor unless prosecutors can prove it was done to conceal another crime. No former US president has ever been charged with a crime.
Trump has denied the affair and says he did nothing wrong. Prosecutors have subpoenaed him to testify before the grand jury, and he has the right to testify under New York law. However, legal experts said he would not do so because it would not be profitable and he would have to give up the mantle of immunity automatically granted to jury witnesses under state law.
Cohen was jailed after pleading guilty in 2018 to federal charges, including campaign finance violations, for arranging payments to porn actor Stormy Daniels and model Karen McDougal to keep them from going public. He has also been fired.
Trump’s lawyers could point to these factors in an attempt to undermine Cohen’s credibility, if the former president is indicted and Cohen eventually testifies in court.
Cohen has been meeting regularly with Manhattan prosecutors in recent weeks, including a Friday session to prepare for a grand jury appearance.
The panel has been hearing evidence since January on what Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg called the “next chapter” of the years-long Trump investigation. But cash payments — perhaps the best way to check Trump — have been weak.
Federal prosecutors and Bragg’s predecessor in the DA’s office, Cyrus Vance Jr., each reviewed the payments but did not charge Trump.
Cohen declined to comment to reporters as he left the meeting, saying he would “take some time now to be quiet and let the DA build their case.”
The Manhattan district attorney’s office also declined to comment.
Trump continued to attack the probe on social media on Friday, calling the case a “Scam, Injustice, Mockery, and the Full and Total Weapons of Law Enforcement to Influence the Presidential Election!”
Cohen paid Daniels $130,000 through his own company and was later reimbursed by Trump, whose company listed the reimbursement as “legal fees.”
McDougal’s $150,000 payment was made through the publisher of the National Enquirer, which suppressed the story in a dubious journalistic practice known as “catch-and-kill.”
According to federal prosecutors who charged Cohen, the Trump Organization then “reimbursed” Cohen for the payment to Daniels for “tax purposes,” giving him $360,000 plus a $60,000 bonus, for a total of $420,000.
Associated Press writer Jill Colvin contributed to this report.
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