U.S. President Donald Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, leaves the Daniel Patrick Moynihan United States Court House past news media in lower Manhattan, New York City, U.S. August 21, 2018. REUTERS/Mike Segar
August 23, 2018
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Federal prosecutors granted immunity to two executives of the company that publishes the National Enquirer, in a probe involving Michael Cohen, the former personal lawyer of U.S. President Donald Trump, Vanity Fair reported on Thursday.
American Media Inc’s (AMI) Chief Executive Officer David Pecker, a longtime friend of Trump and Cohen, met with prosecutors to describe the involvement of the president and Cohen in hush-money deals to women before the 2016 U.S. presidential election, the Wall Street Journal reported. Another AMI executive, Dylan Howard, also received immunity, Vanity Fair and the Wall Street Journal reported.
Prosecutors in the Southern District of New York declined to comment, while Eric Klee, the general counsel for AMI, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
On Tuesday, Cohen pleaded guilty to tax evasion, bank fraud and campaign finance violations charges. He told a federal court that Trump had directed him to arrange payments before the election to silence two women who said they had sex with Trump. Trump has denied having sex with the women.
Trump initially denied knowing anything about Cohen’s action, before acknowledging he had reimbursed him for payments made in 2016 to Stormy Daniels, an adult-film actress whose real name is Stephanie Clifford.
In an interview with Fox News Channel, Trump said he paid Cohen out of personal funds and the payments were intended to resolve a personal matter, not to benefit his campaign.
(Reporting by Makini Brice; Additional reporting by Karen Freifeld in Washington and Nathan Layne in New York; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe and David Gregorio)
