JIM MUSTIAN and MICHAEL R. SISAKNEW YORK — — Donald Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, said he met for 2½ hours Tuesday with Manhattan prosecutors who have revived a years-old investigation into payments made to a porn star to keep her quiet about an alleged extramarital tryst.
Cohen pleaded guilty in 2018 to federal charges that he violated campaign finance law by arranging payouts to porn actor Stormy Daniels and model Karen McDougal to keep them from going public with claims of extramarital affairs with Trump. Trump has denied the affairs. After that conviction, Vance's successor, District Attorney Alvin Bragg, said its Trump investigation was moving to the “next chapter," but he offered no specifics on where it was headed next.A message seeking comment was left with the Manhattan district attorney’s office.
Bragg’s office said Pomerantz failed to receive required authorization before writing the book, “People v. Trump, An Inside Account" and that he could be committing a crime if he was “unlawfully converting confidential government information for his personal advantage.” The office is seeking to review the manuscript before publication.
As for Cohen, he met with Manhattan prosecutors earlier in the investigation more than a dozen times, including three times while serving a federal prison sentence. Tuesday’s session was his first since Bragg took office last year.