Michael Cohen, the previous personal lawyer to Donald Trump, said Friday that he believes he’ll “very soon” be called to testify before a Recent York grand jury collecting evidence in a criminal probe of the previous president.
Cohen’s comments got here as he was en route to fulfill for the 18th time with the Manhattan District Attorney’s office, which is conducting the investigation related to hush money payments paid to 2 women who said they’d sexual relationships with Trump.
A former top advisor to Trump, Kellyanne Conway, met with the DA’s office on Wednesday, The Recent York Times reported.
“I look ahead to speaking and to being presented before the grand jury,” Cohen told NBC News and other reporters.
“I actually have some work to do today, but I think it is going to be very soon,” Cohen added.
Cohen arranged payments to porn star Stormy Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal to maintain them quiet before the 2016 presidential election in regards to the alleged liaisons with Trump, whose campaign on the time was being run by Conway.
In Daniels’ case, Cohen paid her $130,000, but in McDougal’s case, the then-parent company of the supermarket tabloid The National Enquirer paid her $150,000.
Cohen in his 2020 wrote that when he had paid Daniels, “I called Trump to substantiate that the transaction was accomplished, and the documentation all in place, but he didn’t take my call — obviously a really bad sign, in hindsight.”
But Conway “called and said she’d pass along the excellent news,” Cohen wrote.
Cohen pleaded guilty to federal criminal charges in 2018 related to the payoffs to the 2 women and to other illegal acts.
Trump has denied having sex with either woman and another wrongdoing.
The Times this week reported that David Pecker, the Enquirer’s former publisher, and the Enquirer’s former editor Dylan Howard have each testified to the grand jury, as have two employees of Trump’s company, the Trump Organization. So has Keith Davidson, a former lawyer for Daniels, the newspaper reported.
Cohen’s lawyer, Lanny Davis, on Friday complimented Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg and “his team of prosecutors.”
“We’ve been very impressed with how meticulous and detailed with documents and text messages and a number of evidence built around this narrative regarding Stormy Daniels and the hush money,” Davis said, in accordance with NBC News.
Asked by one reporter if he’s confident Bragg will obtain an indictment within the case, Davis said, “won’t use the indictment word, I’ll wait to see.
“But there is not any doubt the way in which they are going about this,” Davis said. “Michael’s the important thing to all of this … and he’s going to be the principal witness and Mr. Trump is finally going to be held accountable in front of a jury of his peers,” Davis said. “Then we’ll see whether he’s guilty or innocent.”
A lawyer for Trump didn’t immediately return a request for comment.
Along with the Manhattan DA’s probe, Trump faces three other criminal investigations.
In Atlanta, the local district attorney is investigating Trump, his campaign lawyers and others in connection along with his efforts to overturn his loss to President Joe Biden in that state within the 2020 election.
And in Washington, D.C., special counsel Jack Smith is overseeing a Department of Justice probe of Trump’s try to undo Biden’s victory within the Electoral College, and his actions leading as much as an including the Jan. 6, 2021, riot by his supporters that interrupted a joint session of Congress certifying Biden had won.
Smith can also be is investigating whether Trump obstructed justice and otherwise broke the law in taking a whole bunch of presidency documents, lots of them classified, when he left office, and storing them at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida.
Trump denies wrongdoing in any of those cases.
