President Trump's former longtime personal attorney Michael Cohen may soon be facing charges on more than $20 million in alleged tax and bank fraud.
Investigators are also examining whether Mr. Cohen violated campaign finance or other laws by helping to arrange financial deals to secure the silence of women who said they had affairs with Mr. Trump. The inquiry has entered the final stage and prosecutors are considering filing charges by the end of August ...
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The bank loans under scrutiny, the total of which has not been previously reported, came from two financial institutions in the New York region that have catered to the taxi industry, Sterling National Bank and the Melrose Credit Union ...
Federal investigators in New York are seeking to determine whether Mr. Cohen misrepresented the value of his assets to obtain the loans, which exceed $20 million.
They are also examining how he handled the income from his taxi medallions and whether he failed to report it to the Internal Revenue Service.
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At this late stage of the inquiry, it is still possible that Mr. Cohen may plead guilty rather than face an indictment. He has hinted publicly and has stated explicitly in private that he is eager to tell prosecutors what he knows in exchange for leniency.
A cooperation agreement would likely include a provision that Mr. Cohen also provide information to the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, who is investigating possible involvement by the Trump campaign in Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election.
Cohen's lawyer, Lanny Davis, says he has been communicating with John Dean, the former White House Counsel who ultimately brought down Richard Nixon.
“I reached out to my old friend John Dean because of what he went through with Watergate, and I saw some parallels to what Michael Cohen is experiencing. I wanted to gain from John’s wisdom,” Davis told POLITICO.
“I certainly don’t want to raise expectations that Mr. Cohen has anything like the level of deep involvement and detailed knowledge that John Dean had in the Nixon White House as a witness to Nixon’s crimes, but I did see some similarities and wanted to learn from what John went through.”
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Rather than getting Dean’s legal advice for Cohen, Davis said he has been asking about Dean’s experiences during Watergate to refresh his own memory of the investigation.
Dean confirmed his frequent recent discussions with Davis and told POLITICO that another “person I’d really like to talk to is Guy Petrillo,” Cohen’s criminal defense lawyer.
President Trump called Dean "a rat" in a tweet on Sunday morning, a suspicious characterization of a man who told the truth to protect the nation.
... [I]f a plea deal is not reached, either because Mr. Cohen and prosecutors cannot agree on the terms or because prosecutors determine he does not have valuable information or is not credible, the government would likely seek to bring charges well before the midterm elections.
If the matter is not finalized by the end of August, prosecutors probably will wait until after the election ... That schedule would conform with the Justice Department’s informal policy of avoiding bringing politically sensitive cases that could influence voters close to an election.
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The investigation began under Mr. Mueller, who then referred the evidence to the United States attorney’s office in Manhattan. That office is now leading the inquiry along with the F.B.I. and I.R.S., which have conducted an extensive review of Mr. Cohen’s personal business activities.
Days after the search, Mr. Cohen went to court in an attempt to limit the evidence prosecutors could review, claiming much of what was seized was covered by attorney-client privilege. Mr. Trump joined the effort.
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One witness who could provide evidence about the possible bank and tax fraud is Evgeny Freidman, Mr. Cohen’s longtime friend and former business associate who began cooperating with federal prosecutors this spring.
Mr. Freidman, known as the Taxi King for his once vast and longtime holdings in that industry, managed taxi medallions owned by Mr. Cohen and his family between 2012 and 2018. In 2016, a federal judge found that Mr. Freidman, a lawyer who was disbarred earlier this year, had transferred more than $60 million into offshore trusts to avoid paying debts. New York City regulators have barred him from continuing to manage medallions.
Mr. Freidman was facing up to 25 years in prison in an unrelated state fraud case in Albany involving his taxi business. But he struck a deal with state prosecutors under which he avoided prison in return for cooperating with federal authorities investigating Mr. Cohen.
Full story: Cohen, Trump’s Ex-Lawyer, Investigated for Bank Fraud in Excess of $20 Million (NYT)
Michael Cohen's attorney says he's talking to lawyer who brought down Nixon (Politico)