1. Before he became President Trump’s do-it-all fixer, Michael Cohen was a hard-edge personal-injury lawyer and businessman.

A New York Times review of thousands of pages of public records, and interviews with bankers, lawyers and businessmen who have interacted with Mr. Cohen, reveal that he has often operated in the backwaters of the financial and legal worlds.

Now his business records are under the microscope of federal prosecutors — posing a potential threat not just to Mr. Cohen, but also to the president.