Manhattan DA plans more interviews with Trump’s former personal attorney as probe heats up post-presidency
Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance Jr. plans to interview Michael Cohen again as part of his investigation into allegations that former President Donald Trump has committed a range of financial fraud — an inquiry that is likely to heat up now that he’s no longer in the White House, according to sources familiar with the matter.
Cohen, Trump’s former personal lawyer who’s serving a three-year prison sentence in home confinement, was interviewed by Vance’s team last week over the phone. That hourslong questioning focused on Trump’s finances, including his relationship with Deutsche Bank, his primary lender for decades, The Associated Press reported.
Sources told the Daily News on Thursday that last week’s sitdown proved valuable enough for Vance’s team to move ahead with locking in at least one more interview with Cohen.
The date for the next interview was not immediately known, and a spokesman for Vance declined to comment. Cohen declined to comment as well.
Vance’s investigators first interviewed Cohen in September 2019 while he was still locked up at a federal prison in upstate New York.
Vance’s increasing interest in Cohen suggests the former fixer could be a key part of his investigation, which is the only known active criminal inquiry into Trump.
The DA launched the probe to review whether Trump broke state laws by ordering Cohen to issue illegal hush payments on his behalf to a couple of his alleged extramarital lovers before the 2016 election.
However, Vance has since expanded the scope of his investigation to include what his prosecutors described in court papers as “extensive and protracted criminal conduct at the Trump Organization,” the ex-president’s family business.
Cohen, who’s serving time for facilitating the payoffs to Trump’s alleged paramours and a string of other financial crimes, has long alleged that his former boss artificially inflated the value of his assets to secure bank loans, but deflated them to lower his tax rate. Such financial trickery can amount to fraud, according to legal experts.
A spokeswoman for the Trump Organization did not return a request for comment Thursday. Trump has previously called Vance’s probe a “witch hunt.”
The New York Times reported last month that the DA was intensifying his investigation ahead of Trump’s exit from office by, among other actions, interviewing employees at Deutsche Bank and Aon, Trump’s longtime insurance broker.
Though it’s unclear whether he will ultimately bring charges, Vance’s probe appears to be the most serious legal threat to Trump now that he’s no longer shielded by presidential immunity.
