Michael Cohen said he handed his phones over to the Manhattan district attorney

Investigating Donald Trump’s hush money payments to Stormy Daniels: Cohen’s disclosure of a phone call to the Trump Organization

Michael Cohen, former President Donald Trump’s former attorney, has handed over his cell phones to Manhattan prosecutors, he told “CNN This Morning” on Wednesday.

Prosecutors are zeroing in on the Trump Organization’s involvement in hush-money payments made to adult film star Stormy Daniels as part of an effort to stop her from going public about an alleged affair with Trump days before the 2016 presidential election. A grand jury in New York has been convened to hear evidence related to the effort, sources familiar with the matter have told CNN.

He responded to the release of the video of a deposition Trump gave in August in which he invoked his Fifth Amendment right more than 400 times and refused to answer questions, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter.

Cohen said that the only way to stop Donald from being deposed and hurting himself further was to have him plead the Fifth at least 400 times.

The disclosure by Cohen is the latest sign that prosecutors are investigating the Daniels incident.

According to CNN, the former National Enquirer publisher was set to meet with prosecutors this week. The district attorney’s office also reached out to Davidson, who represented Daniels in the hush money deal, in recent weeks.

Federal prosecutors said in court that Cohen was reimbursed after making the payment to Daniels. The company’s executives authorized payments to him totaling $420,000 to cover his original payment and tax liabilities, and reward him with a bonus, according to federal prosecutors. The company was accused of lying about those payments as legal expenses in their books.

According to people familiar with the investigation, some attorneys on the team didn’t think a federal election law violation charge would survive legal challenges, despite the fact that prosecutors had explored bringing charges related to the scheme.

The lawyer for Daniels said that the communications between the porn star and the attorney have been turned over to the Manhattan district attorney.

During Daniels’ time for representation, the exchanges raise the possibility that the defense of the former President could be in doubt because of his alleged role in a scheme to pay off Daniels.

CNN has not seen the records in question. But legal ethics experts CNN spoke with said they could lead to limits being placed on the role Tacopina can play at trial or even his disqualification. The impact that the disclosure will have on the case will be determined by the circumstances and the contents of the communications.

There are signs that the investigation is ending, but it’s not clear when the charges will be announced or if Trump will face them at all.

Getting Tacopina’s Correspondences Informed Before he Tells the Judge: Ethics and the Witness-Advocate Rule

Brewster told CNN he handed the Daniels’ communications over to prosecutors after seeing Tacopina make public statements that Brewster believes were contrary to what’s evident in Tacopina’s and his firms’ emails with Daniels.

“I can’t really talk about my impressions or any conversations we’d had because there is an attorney-client privilege that attaches even to a consultation,” Tacopina said in the 2018 interview. As the old interview clip began making the rounds again, Tacopina’s firm issued a statement this weekend that said “there was no attorney-client relationship” – a point Tacopina stands by today.

Even if there is no attorney-client relationship, a lawyer who has learned information from a prospective client can’t use it or reveal it.

Stephen Gillers, a professor at New York University School of Law, said that the prosecutors would have the final say on whether or not to cross-examine her. The judge would make a decision.

There would have to be a real need for Tacopina as a witness for him to be disqualified, said Gillers. The witness-advocate rule makes him unable to give critical testimony for the judge.

The ethics rules are supposed to protect both Daniels and Trump, according to Bruce Green of the Louis Stein Center for Law and Ethics. Trump may be placed in an unfair position if his attorney feels he has to pull his punches in his defense because of communications he had with Daniels.

Green said that the question of disqualification was a disgrace, since it would deprive a client of the counsel he or she wanted.

It is possible that prosecutors would ask Trump to waive any potential conflicts so that he won’t raise them in court if he is convicted and seeks to appeal.