Michael Cohen, a former lawyer for former United States President Donald Trump, leaves his apartment in New York City, New York, on March 10, 2021.
Carlo Allegri | Reuters
Senior Manhattan District Attorney’s office this week asked former President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, to return for what would be his eighth interview with the office, which conduct extensive criminal investigation related to the Trump Organization.
A person familiar with the case said Cohen, while officials were questioned for the seventh time via video conference earlier this week, was asked to make himself available soon for a face-to-face interview at the office of DA Cyrus Vance Jr.
Cohen, who is now a declared enemy of Trump, agreed to do so, the source said.
Cohen declined to comment to CNBC, as did Vance spokesman Danny Frost. A Trump Organization spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Interest in talking to Cohen appears repeatedly as Vance has strengthened his research team, recently gained access to Trump’s financial records, and is reportedly expanding the scope of his survey to look Trump’s long-time CFO Allen Weisselberg and Weisselberg’s sons.
One of these children works for the Trump Organization, running ice skating rinks in Central Park. The other works for Ladder Capital Finance, a company that has lent Trump the company nearly $ 300 million in connection with four Manhattan buildings. Vance is known to observe how the Trump Organization valued its buildings.
These events, as well as Vance’s expected announcement on Friday that he will not run for re-election this fall, have raised speculation that the district attorney will try to charge Trump or officials of his company in the coming months.
Vance’s survey originally focused on how the Trump Organization made large payments of money that Cohen made or facilitated to two women, porn star Stormy Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal. before the 2016 presidential election.
Cohen, when convicted of campaign finance violations and other crimes in 2018, told a federal judge that he arranged these payments to Trump’s leadership to keep women silent about his allegations of having sex. sex with Trump. The former president denies the women’s claims.
Cohen later told Congress that the Trump Organization would inflate and deflate the value of real estate assets to earn favorable loan and insurance terms or to reduce the amount of taxes owed to them.
Those Cohen allegations are now being analyzed in both Vance’s investigation and a civil investigation by State Attorney General Letitia James.
Vance’s court records suggest his investigation is looking at possible “insurance and bank fraud by the Trump Organization and its officials,” as well as possible tax crimes.
Vance last month hired Mark Pomerantz, a private-collar white-collar criminal defense attorney, as a DA special assistant for the sole purpose of working on Trump’s investigation.
Pomerantz’s career has included a period of leadership in the criminal division of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan, where he oversaw cases of securities fraud and organized crime.
Pomerantz was one of the investigators who spoke with Cohen this week on the video call. Also in this call were Vance and other senior office officials.
The DA’s office also retained the consulting firm FTI to analyze Trump’s financial records.
In February, following Pomerantz’s hiring, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Trump’s effort to prevent Vance from receiving his tax returns and other financial records from his longtime accountants by a grand jury citation. .
The researchers quickly obtained these documents.
Cohen began cooperating with Vance’s investigation in 2018, before being sentenced in 2019 to three years in prison for his crimes.
Investigators from the DA’s office visited him at the federal prison in Otisville, New York.
Cohen was released from prison on internment last May due to concern that he was at special risk for Covid-19 due to multiple health issues.
He was returned to prison in July after rejecting the demand for federal probation officials not to publish a book about Trump or anyone, while serving the rest of his term in prison.
Cohen was released again about two weeks later after an outraged federal judge said he was retaliated against by the Prisons Office for failing to meet that condition. Cohen later published his book on Trump, entitled “Unfair.”
Since then, in addition to cooperating with Vance’s research, Cohen has been hosting a podcast, Mea Culpa, whose guests include Trump critics such as Daniels, the porn actress, and Rosie O’Donnell.
Audio Up, which produces the podcast, touted it on Friday as “the fastest growing podcast in the world,” with “5 million downloads.”