Prosecutors are still investigating campaign finance crimes committed when Cohen paid two women to stay silent about alleged affairs, judge says

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

A judge confirmed in a court filing on Thursday that federal prosecutors in New York are still investigating campaign finance crimes committed when Donald Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, paid two women to stay silent about alleged affairs with Trump before he became president.

US district judge William Pauley made the disclosure as he agreed to release, in several weeks’ time, some court documents related to the search warrant that authorized last April’s FBI raids on Cohen’s home and office. Media organizations had requested access to the records.

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Pauley said some documents should stay secret because making them public could jeopardize aspects of its investigation, “including those pertaining to or arising from Cohen’s campaign finance crimes”.

In December, Pauley sentenced Cohen to three years in prison for crimes including tax evasion, fraud, lying to Congress and campaign finance violations that occurred when two women were paid to stay silent about affairs they claimed to have had with Trump. Cohen is scheduled to testify behind closed doors to committees on Capitol Hill later this month, and then is due to go to prison on 6 March.

The judge authorized disclosure of portions of materials related to Cohen’s tax evasion and false statements to financial institutions charges, along with Cohen’s conduct that did not result in criminal charges.

Nine media organizations had cited high public interest and a right to access in requesting the records.

The judge gave prosecutors until the end of the month to identify portions of the documents that should stay secret.

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Prosecutors, through a spokesman, declined comment.

The judge said the search warrant applications and affidavits supporting them “catalogue an assortment of uncharged individuals and detail their involvement in communications and transactions connected to the campaign finance charges to which Cohen pled guilty”.

Pauley said prosecutors revealed to him that “these individuals include those cooperating with the government, those who have provided information to the government, and other subjects of the investigation”.

He said the search warrants do not detail the government’s ongoing investigation as much as other documents including affidavits, but they “enumerate topics of inquiry relating to the campaign finance charges”.

The judge added: “At this stage, wholesale disclosure of the materials would reveal the scope and direction of the government’s ongoing investigation. It would also unveil subjects of the investigation and the potential conduct under scrutiny, the full volume and nature of the evidence gathered thus far, and the sources of information provided to the government.”

Cohen pleaded guilty in August to two campaign violations and other crimes.

One charge described a $150,000 payment to former Playboy Playmate Karen McDougal and another concerned a $130,000 payment Cohen made to porn star Stormy Daniels using a sham home equity loan before he was reimbursed through the Trump Organization using false invoices, court papers said.

Cohen, in his plea, said that it was all done with the knowledge and at the direction of a “candidate for federal office”, meaning Trump.

News organizations in the legal action to unseal the documents included the New York Times, the Associated Press, and the parent companies of ABC and CBS News, CNN, the Daily News, the Wall Street Journal, Newsday and the New York Post.

Pauley called the public’s right to access the materials substantial and said the materials are “entitled to a strong presumption of public access”.