Michael Cohen says he handed over cell phones to Manhattan DA in Trump hush-money probe

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Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer and fixer, has said that he has handed over his cell phones to the Manhattan District Attorney’s office.

Cohen made the revelation on CNN on Wednesday morning.

He met with New York prosecutors last month as the DA’s office is focusing on the Trump Organization’s role in the hush-money payment made to adult actor Stormy Daniels in connection to the former president’s 2016 campaign for the White House.

A grand jury was recently convened in the case concerning Mr Trump’s involvement in the payment made to Ms Daniels. Cohen was sentenced to three years in federal prison on campaign finance law violations after having orchestrated the settlement, which the former fixer claims Mr Trump told him to do.

Mr Trump has rejected the allegation that he had an affair with Ms Daniels, whose legal name is Stephanie Clifford. The former president also denies the claim that he told Cohen to arrange the payment.

Ms Daniels claims that she had an affair with Mr Trump in 2006. He married former Melania Trump the previous year.

“Most recently, they asked for my cell phones because they want to be able to extract from it the voice recordings that I had had with Keith Davidson, former attorney to Stormy Daniels before Michael Avenatti, as well as a bunch of emails, text messages and so on,” Cohen told CNN on Wednesday morning.

While the cell phones were taken by federal investigators following the FBI raid on his home in 2018, Cohen said the devices are “new to the district attorney”.

Video footage was recently released showing Mr Trump in a deposition at the office of the New York attorney general in August, in which he used the Fifth Amendment to avoid answering questions more than 400 times, according to CNN.

“Donald cannot keep track of the lies that he tells, and so, what better way to stop a fool from being deposed and hurting himself further than to tell him to plead the Fifth at least 400 times,” Cohen told the network.

The former publisher of the National Enquirer, David Pecker, was scheduled to meet with the prosecution this week, according to CNN. The office of the DA has also contacted Mr Davidson, who represented Ms Daniels in the hush-money arrangement.

Cohen pleaded guilty to the campaign finance violations after arranging the $130,000 payment to Ms Daniels.

The prosecution is probing if Mr Trump and his business faked business documents by regarding the hush money as a legal fee, which is a misdemeanour in the state of New York unless it can be connected to a separate crime, including a campaign finance violation.

Federal prosecutors said in legal filings that Cohen was reimbursed by the Trump Organization after he made the payment to Ms Daniels.

Executives at the business greenlit payments to Cohen to the tune of $420,000 for the payment to Ms Daniels, his tax obligations, and a bonus as a reward, federal prosecutors have alleged.

The prosecutors have claimed that the business faked the records of the payment as legal fees. Prosecutors said that when Cohen handled the payment, he “acted in coordination with and at the direction of” Mr Trump.