Prosecutors have increased the frequency of their interviews with Cohen since they began in the fall of 2019 shortly after the district attorney’s office cited Trump’s accountant for his taxes.
Cohen, who worked for Trump for about a decade and once said he would take a bullet for Trump, knows the internal workings of the company. Prosecutors are interested in talking to Cohen because he can help explain the company’s culture and the relationship between Trump, his family, and Allen Weisselberg, the Trump Organization’s chief financial officer.
Prosecutors are investigating whether the Trump Organization improperly inflated the value of its assets when dealing with lenders and insurance companies and deflated them when they filed taxes.
They are also investigating tax deductions for fees paid to consultants, including Ivanka Trump, the former president’s daughter, and conservation easements given to Seven Springs, a family farm in Westchester County, New York.
Cohen told Congress that Trump inflated and deflated the value of certain assets to get loans and reduce his tax bill. He also participated in the money payment scheme and pleaded guilty to nine charges, including campaign funding violations, in connection with the scheme.
Investigators met with Cohen three times in late 2019 while serving a time in a federal prison in Otisville, New York.
According to a person familiar with the matter, it is believed that Friday’s meeting will be the first to be held in person at the DA’s office. Cohen has been serving the rest of his sentence from his home in Manhattan.
The district attorney’s investigation has gained momentum this year. In February, Cy Vance, the district attorney, recruited Mark Pomerantz, a well-regarded former federal prosecutor, to oversee the investigation. Pomerantz has spent decades as a defense attorney working in financial investigations and has an idea of how these cases are handled and how companies and individuals defend themselves against them. They also brought in an external forensic accounting firm.
Vance’s office last month, after a 16-month court battle, acceded to eight years of Trump’s personal and business tax returns and related records. Researchers have been dumping records, which add up to millions of pages. Vance is not running for re-election and, according to people familiar with the matter, is likely to decide whether to file a case before leaving office in December. According to people who know the subject, the decision could still be months away.