Federal prosecutors investigating President Donald Trump’s personal attorney, Michael Cohen, are seeking records related to two women who received payments in 2016 after alleging affairs with Trump years ago — adult-film star Stormy Daniels and ex-Playboy model Karen McDougal, according to two people familiar with the matter.
The interest in both Daniels and McDougal indicates that federal investigators are trying to determine whether there was a broader pattern or strategy among Trump associates to buy the silence of women whose accounts could harm the president’s electoral chances and whether any crimes were committed in doing so, one of those people said.
Investigators also are seeking all communications about Daniels and McDougal between Cohen, David Pecker — a personal friend of Trump and the chief executive of American Media Inc., which publishes the National Enquirer — and Dylan Howard, the chief content officer of American Media and a reporter there.
Daniels is cooperating with federal prosecutors, according to a source familiar with the investigation. Her cooperation first was reported by NBC News.
The high stakes of the case were underscored by the involvement of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who personally approved the move to seek a search warrant for Cohen’s records, which included raids on Monday on his home and office, according to two people with knowledge of the investigation.
The raid infuriated Trump, who was left “stunned” and “livid” by the aggressive move by prosecutors on Monday, according to an outside adviser in frequent touch with the White House.
Trump privately continued to gripe on Tuesday about Rosenstein, who also oversees Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 campaign, according to people familiar with the situation. Many in the president’s orbit think Rosenstein’s position is currently the most endangered if the president decides to take action to try to halt the probe, the people said.
Cohen, Trump’s longtime attorney, is under federal investigation for possible bank fraud, wire fraud and campaign finance violations, The Washington Post reported on Monday.
The New York Times first reported prosecutors’ interest in McDougal. The former Playmate has said she had a 10-month relationship with Trump beginning in 2006 and then sold her story to American Media for $150,000 about three months before the 2016 election.
No story about McDougal ever appeared in the publication, a tabloid practice sometimes referred to as “catch and kill.”
American Media spokesman Jon Hammond did not respond to questions about whether the company had been contacted by federal investigators.
“American Media Inc. has, and will continue to, comply with any and all requests that do not jeopardize or violate its protected sources or materials pursuant to our First Amendment rights,” Hammond said.
McDougal’s attorney, Peter Stris, declined to comment on the Cohen investigation.
The search warrants served on Monday on Cohen’s Rockefeller Center office and home sought his personal financial information and client communications, including records related to Daniels, who was paid $130,000 by the Trump lawyer just days before the 2016 election in what she described as an effort to buy her silence.
The raids, which also swept up communications between Cohen and Trump, left the White House scrambling to contain yet another crisis in an administration rife with them.
Some White House allies think that this one, like many of the administration’s pockets of turbulence, was brought on by Trump himself — specifically, by comments he made last week aboard Air Force One, when he claimed he had no knowledge of the payment Cohen made to Daniels, according to three people familiar with the discussions.
“He shot himself in the foot by saying he didn’t know anything about the payment,” one of the people said.
Several lawyers noted that public statements from Cohen and Trump that the president was unaware of the payment may have significantly aided federal prosecutors’ legal arguments to justify searching the lawyer’s office, home and hotel room.
If both the lawyer and the client insisted that Trump had no idea that Cohen had made the payment, they cannot assert that those activities were protected by attorney-client privilege, legal experts said.
“At that point, anything to do with that entire incident is, I would argue, not attorney-client privilege,” said Patrick Cotter, a former federal prosecutor who practices law in Chicago. “If I were a prosecutor hearing both the lawyer and the client say the client had no awareness whatsoever of that, I would now feel very confident going to a judge to seek that material.”
On Monday, asked by reporters why he doesn’t just fire Mueller, Trump said, “We’ll see what happens,” and added, “Many people have said, ‘You should fire him.’ ” And on Tuesday, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the president believes he has the authority to fire Mueller.
Special counsel regulations say only the attorney general — or in this case, the acting attorney general on the Russia probe, Rosenstein — can dismiss the special counsel. But legal experts say the White House could achieve the same end result by rescinding the regulation that allows for a special counsel.