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Officials discussing security in case of Trump indictment

Law enforcement officials in New York are making security preparations for the possibility that Donald Trump could be indicted in the coming weeks by a Manhattan grand jury and appear in a courtroom in an investigation examining hush money paid to women who alleged sexual encounters with the former president, four law enforcement officials said Friday. There has been no public announcement of any timeframe for the grand jury's secret work, including any potential vote on whether to indict the ex-president. Trump's lawyer, Joseph Tacopina, had no comment.

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Stormy Daniels meets with prosecutors investigating Trump

Porn actor Stormy Daniels met Wednesday with prosecutors who are investigating hush money paid to her on former President Donald Trump's behalf, her lawyer said Wednesday. The news emerged as Michael Cohen, a former Trump attorney who orchestrated the payment, was giving a second day of testimony before a New York grand jury looking into the matter. The $130,000 payment was made in 2016, as Trump's first presidential campaign was in its final weeks and Daniels was negotiating to go on television to air her claims of a sexual encounter with him a decade earlier.

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Hope Hicks meets with NY prosecutors investigating Trump

Donald Trump’s former spokesperson Hope Hicks met Monday with Manhattan prosecutors who are investigating hush-money payments made on the ex-president’s behalf — the latest member of the Republican's inner circle to be questioned in the renewed probe. Hicks and her lawyer, Robert Trout, spent several hours inside the Manhattan district attorney’s office and, afterward, were seen walking to a waiting SUV. The district attorney’s office also declined comment and would not confirm prosecutors interviewed Hicks served as Trump’s 2016 campaign press secretary and held various roles in his White House, including communications director.

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Cohen says DA took phones for renewed Trump hush-money probe

Donald Trump’s long-estranged former lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen, says Manhattan prosecutors recently took his cellphones to preserve evidence related to a hush-money payment he made to porn actress Stormy Daniels in the waning weeks of the 2016 presidential campaign. The payment to Daniels, which Cohen says was intended to buy her silence about an alleged sexual encounter with Trump, has been the subject of law-enforcement scrutiny for years, but a new grand jury is giving it a fresh look by a new grand jury. Cohen said Wednesday that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office asked for the phones because it wants to extract voice recordings of conversations he had with a lawyer for Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, as well as emails and text messages.

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NY prosecutors interview Cohen an 8th time in Trump inquiry

Michael Cohen, former personal attorney for Donald Trump, arrives at the Manhattan District Attorney's office, Friday, March 19, 2021, in New York. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)NEW YORK – Donald Trump's former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, was interviewed on Friday for an eighth time by New York prosecutors investigating the former president's finances. Cohen met with investigators at the Manhattan District Attorney's Office amid a swirl of new activity in the the criminal inquiry, including fresh subpoenas and face-to-face meetings with key witnesses. Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. also is scrutinizing hush-money payments paid to women on Trump’s behalf. AdHis office is now in possession of eight years of Trump’s tax records after a lengthy legal battle.

Trump's taxes in hand, Manhattan DA's probe heats up

FILE - In this Friday Feb. 14, 2020, file photo, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr., center, leaves Criminal Court in New York. New York prosecutors are asking new questions about former President Donald Trump's Seven Springs estate in Mount Kisco, N.Y., trying to determine whether the value of the century-old mansion was improperly inflated to reduce the former president's taxes. AdIn a recent interview with Cohen, investigators asked questions about Trump's Seven Springs estate as part of an inquiry into whether the value of the 213-acre Westchester County property was improperly inflated to reduce his taxes. Ad“The work continues,” Vance wrote, echoing his short statement after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled last month that he could have Trump's tax records. The amount was based on a professional appraisal that valued the full Seven Springs property at $56.5 million as of Dec. 1, 2015.

Claimed value of sleepy NY estate could come to haunt Trump

The Seven Springs, a property owned by former U.S. President Donald Trump, is covered in snow, Tuesday, Feb. 23, 2021, in Mount Kisco, N.Y. Meyer's daughter, the late Washington Post publisher Katharine Graham, was married at Seven Springs in 1940. The amount was based on a professional appraisal that valued the full Seven Springs property at $56.5 million as of Dec. 1, 2015. AdCohen testified that Trump had financial statements saying Seven Springs was worth $291 million as of 2012. Along with the mansion, Seven Springs has a Tudor-style home once owned by ketchup magnate H.J.

What NY prosecutors could learn from Trump's tax records

Vance Jr. fought for a year and a half to get access to former President Donald Trumps tax records. Former prosecutors say the trove of records could give investigators new tools to determine whether Trump lied to lenders or tax officials. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II, File)NEW YORK – Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. fought for a year and a half to get access to former President Donald Trump’s tax records. Whether Trump's records will contain evidence of a crime is uncertain. AdIt isn’t clear, though, whether Trump’s tax records will add much to that part of the probe.

Riot lawsuit just part of Trump's post-impeachment problems

The former "Apprentice" contestant is trying to get her defamation lawsuit against former President Donald Trump moving again now that he's no longer president. Federal prosecutors in Washington, meanwhile, have charged some 200 Trump supporters with crimes related to the riot, including more serious conspiracy charges. There has been no indication that Trump would be charged in the riot though prosecutors have said they are looking at all angles. The same U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan also appears to have moved on from its investigation of Trump’s inaugural committee. Recently, her office has won a series of court rulings forcing Trump’s company and a law firm it hired to turn over troves of records.

Stormy Daniels and Michael Cohen, once foes, talk Trump

When Donald Trump left the White House in January 2021, he remained "Individual-1" in the federal campaign finance crimes case against his former attorney, Michael Cohen. The prosecution stemmed from six-figure payments Cohen arranged to Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal, to keep them quiet during the campaign about alleged affairs with Trump. Federal prosecutors charged Cohen with skirting campaign contribution rules by arranging the hush-money payment to Daniels and a similar payment to Playboy model Karen McDougal. Cohen and Daniels are united not only in infamy but deep regret over Trump. “I’ve been face to face with evil in the most intimate way,” Daniels said.

What of 'Individual-1'? Feds' Trump campaign case is 'dead'

When Donald Trump left the White House in January 2021, he remained "Individual-1" in the federal campaign finance crimes case against his former attorney, Michael Cohen. The prosecution stemmed from six-figure payments Cohen arranged to Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal, to keep them quiet during the campaign about alleged affairs with Trump. Trump himself had been publicly implicated by prosecutors as complicit in Cohen's campaign finance crimes during his 2016 run for office. The attorney spoke on the condition of anonymity because prosecutors have not discussed the case publicly. The Manhattan prosecutor’s probe includes a look at the 2016 hush-money payoffs.

NY prosecutors interview Michael Cohen about Trump finances

A bound edition about President Donald Trumps second impeachment will feature a foreword from an estranged associate _ former Trump attorney Michael Cohen. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File)NEW YORK – New York prosecutors conducted an hourslong interview Thursday of Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump's former personal attorney, asking a range of questions about Trump's business dealings, according to three people familiar with the meeting. The interview, at least the second of Cohen by the Manhattan district attorney's office, comes amid a long-running grand jury investigation into Trump's business dealings. Vance has declined to provide specific details about the investigation, but pointed to news reports of what prosecutors described as “extensive and protracted criminal conduct at the Trump Organization" in court filings. Jack Weisselberg, the son of Trump Organization Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg, is a director of Ladder Capital.

Michael Cohen writes foreword for Trump impeachment book

A bound edition about President Donald Trumps second impeachment will feature a foreword from an estranged associate _ former Trump attorney Michael Cohen. Skyhorse Publishing announced that The Second Impeachment Report" comes out Feb. 9. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File)NEW YORK – A bound edition of materials about President Donald Trump's second impeachment will feature a foreword from an estranged associate — former Trump attorney Michael Cohen. Skyhorse Publishing announced that “The Second Impeachment Report: Materials in Support of H. Res. Cohen already has written a book about his falling out with Trump, the bestselling “Disloyal.” In his foreword to the new book, he writes, “We should never have to call Donald Trump ‘Mr.

New law cracks down on shell companies to combat corruption

FILE - This Thursday, June 6, 2019 file photo shows the U.S. Treasury Department building at dusk in Washington. “It required all kinds of shoe-leather investigating to identify who was really behind these shell companies,” recalled Alonso. For the first time, shell companies will be required to provide the names of their owners or face stiff penalties and jail sentences. The information will be stored in a confidential database accessible to federal law enforcement and shared with banks who are often unwitting accomplices to international corruption. Box and a registered agent who is frequently a law firm dedicated to churning out companies in bulk.

New round of Trump clemency benefits Manafort, other allies

FILE - In this Thursday, June 27, 2019 file photo, Paul Manafort arrives in court in New York. President Trump's former campaign manager is to be arraigned on state mortgage fraud charges. Manafort, who led Trump's campaign during a pivotal period in 2016 before being ousted over his ties to Ukraine, was among the first people charged as part of Mueller’s investigation into ties between the Trump campaign and Russia. Though the charges against Manafort did not concern the central thrust of Mueller's mandate — whether the Trump campaign and Russia colluded to tip the election — he was nonetheless a pivotal figure in the investigation. Trump and the elder Kushner knew each other from real estate circles and their children were married in 2009.

Trump expected to flex pardon powers on way out door

WASHINGTON – Advocates and lawyers anticipate a flurry of clemency action from President Donald Trump in the coming weeks that could test the limits of presidential pardon power. No, Mr. President, that would be a gross abuse of the presidential pardon authority,” Schumer said. Trump then featured Johnson's story in a Super Bowl ad and pardoned her during this year's Republican National Convention. He has participated in several meetings at the White House during Trump's term as officials brainstormed potential changes to the formal clemency process. “For those people that should be free," he said, Trump's friends-and-family approach to pardons is "a deep and real tragedy."