David Pecker, the former head of the company that publishes the National Enquirer, is expected to meet with Manhattan prosecutors investigating former President Donald Trump, people familiar with the matter said, indicating the probe is escalating.
Meanwhile, the Manhattan district attorney’s office on Monday started presenting evidence to a grand jury on the issue, The New York Times reported.
Pecker’s meeting is scheduled for this week, sources tell CNN. He was involved in an effort to stop adult film star Stormy Daniels from going public about a past alleged affair with Trump days before the 2016 presidential election. (Trump has denied the affair.)
Earlier this month prosecutors met with Michael Cohen, Trump’s former personal attorney, for the first time in over a year. Cohen pleaded guilty to federal campaign finance charges for facilitating the $130,000 payment to Daniels.
The district attorney’s office also reached out to Keith Davidson, who represented Daniels in the hush money deal, in recent weeks, another person familiar with the matter said.
Manhattan prosecutors are looking into whether Trump and his business falsified business records by improperly treating the reimbursement as a legal expense. That charge is a misdemeanor in New York unless it can be tied to another crime, such as campaign finance laws.
Prosecutors working under the previous DA, Cy Vance, had explored bringing charges related to the hush money scheme but some attorneys on the team were not convinced that a charge involving a federal election law violation would survive legal challenges, people familiar with the investigation told CNN.
A spokesperson for Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, declined to comment. An attorney for Pecker also declined to comment.
Last year a jury convicted two Trump Organization entities of…
Read the full article here
