45РОССИЯ—ASSANGE CHRGD W/ SPYING—DJT IMPEACHED TWICE-US TREASURY SANCTS KILIMNIK AS RUSSIAN AGNT
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SDNY basically has trump dead to rights
but the DOJ won't indict the president 
Hush-Money Probe Gathered Evidence From Trump’s Inner Circle
Federal investigators, looking into payments to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal, questioned longtime aides of the president and amassed more evidence than previously known
President Trump with Hope Hicks in November 2017, when Ms. Hicks was White House communications directorAndrew Harnik/Associated Press
By
Nicole Hong,
Rebecca Ballhausand
Rebecca Davis O’Brien
April 10, 2019 8:05 a.m. ET
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The Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office has gathered more evidence than previously known in its criminal investigation of hush payments to two women who alleged affairs with Donald Trump, including from members of the president’s inner circle.
Prosecutors interviewed Hope Hicks, a former close aide to Mr. Trump and White House communications director, last spring as part of their campaign-finance probe, which ultimately implicated the president in federal crimes.
They also spoke to Keith Schiller, Mr. Trump’s former security chief. Investigators learned of calls between Mr. Schiller and David Pecker, chief executive of the National Enquirer’s publisher, which has admitted it paid $150,000 to a former Playboy model on Mr. Trump’s behalf to keep her story under wraps.
In addition, investigators possess a recorded phone conversation between Mr. Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen and a lawyer who represented the two women.
The prosecutors’ campaign-finance investigation is based on the theory that the secret payments to keep women quiet were illegal contributions, because they were intended to influence the election. New details of the investigation—gleaned from interviews with 20 people familiar with the probe and from nearly 1,000 pages of court documents—show prosecutors had gathered information about Mr. Trump’s alleged involvement in the payments weeks before Mr. Cohen asserted it in open court.
Mueller Report Is Complete, But Federal Investigations Continue
Mr. Cohen, in pleading guilty last August to charges that included campaign-finance violations, said he arranged the payments at Mr. Trump’s direction. Prosecutors in December implicated the president in the campaign-finance crimes, identifying him as the “Individual-1” who directed and coordinated the payments to the two women. Mr. Cohen is scheduled to begin a three-year prison sentence next month for lying to a bank, lying to Congress, tax evasion and campaign-finance violations.
Mr. Trump has denied the women’s claims of sexual encounters and has denied wrongdoing. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal in October, he declined to address whether he had ever discussed hush-money payments with Mr. Cohen during the 2016 campaign. Jay Sekulow, a lawyer for Mr. Trump, declined to comment for this article.
Inner Circle
New York federal prosecuters interviewed people close to Donald Trump while investigating hush-money payments.
Hope Hicks
Former White House communications director
Michael Cohen
Trump’s former attorney
Keith Schiller
Trump’s former security chief
David Pecker
American Media chief executive
Allen Weisselberg
Trump Organization chief financial officer
Sources: court documents and interviews with people with knowledge of the investigation; Zuma Press (Schiller); Getty Images (Trump, Hicks); Associated Press (Pecker); Reuters (Cohen); JB Miller/Trump Organization (Weisselberg)
What federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York might do with the information they’ve gathered on Mr. Trump couldn’t be determined. The office has proceeded in adherence to a Justice Department policy that sitting presidents can’t be indicted. Prosecutors have given no indication they would seek to charge Mr. Trump after he leaves office.
It is possible nothing more will come of it. “A lot of cases sit around for years,” said Peter Zeidenberg, a former Justice Department prosecutor now at law firm Arent Fox LLP, who isn’t involved in the investigation. Speaking of the evidence, he said, “They’re going to hang onto it,” but added: “They could decide that they don’t have enough evidence, or it’s not a prosecutable case.”
Federal prosecutors in Manhattan got involved in February 2018 when special counsel Robert Mueller transferred to their office the parts of his investigation of Mr. Cohen that were unrelated to Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Weeks earlier, the Journal had revealed Mr. Cohen’s $130,000 payment of hush money made to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election. The report fueled the expansion of the probe of Mr. Cohen’s business affairs to include a campaign-finance investigation.
The Southern District delved into his emails and bank records, scrutinizing transactions in and out of a shell company Mr. Cohen created called Essential Consultants LLC.
Michael Cohen, President Trump’s former lawyer, seen leaving court last MayPhoto: Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/Getty Images
Before the handoff to New York, Mr. Mueller had obtained Mr. Cohen’s emails dating to at least January 2016 and had subpoenaed his accountant, Jeffrey Getzel, for documents related to Mr. Cohen’s businesses. But Mr. Cohen’s lawyers resisted letting the Mueller team see Mr. Cohen’s Trump Organization email account, citing attorney-client privilege. Mr. Mueller’s office didn’t push the issue.
The Southern District investigators and the Federal Bureau of Investigation went to great lengths to hide the existence of their investigation of Mr. Cohen. Agents, for instance, asked federal judges to direct an email provider not to notify Mr. Cohen of search warrants the prosecutors were seeking.
The agents sought historical location data for cellphones used by Mr. Cohen, including for the month in late 2016 when he arranged a payment to Ms. Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford. Investigators obtained authorization for surveillance that let them see phone numbers of calls dialed and received on the cellphones.
And they quietly hatched a plan for the extraordinary step of raiding the office of a president’s lawyer. That was necessary, Manhattan federal prosecutors argued in a public court filing, because without a search warrant, certain records “could have been deleted without record and without recourse for law enforcement.” New York investigators also wanted access to Mr. Cohen’s Trump Organization email account.
Keith Schiller, left, with President Trump in June 2017, when Mr. Schiller was Director of Oval Office OperationsPhoto: nicholas kamm/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
Lanny Davis, an attorney for Mr. Cohen, said, “The speculation by the SDNY prosecutors...about the possibility of destruction of evidence is just that—and without a scintilla of factual basis and absurd. Mr. Cohen has never and would never destroy evidence in anticipation of a search.”
Investigators crafted a detailed search warrant, explaining why they had probable cause to suspect Mr. Cohen’s home, office, hotel room and safe-deposit box contained evidence of crimes. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein approved the search-warrant application.
The raid, in the early morning of April 9, 2018, was the first public revelation of the Southern District’s investigation. Among the items seized, said a person familiar with the matter, was a recording of a September 2017 phone call between Mr. Cohen and Keith Davidson, then a lawyer for Ms. Daniels.
The phone call was sparked by an inquiry to Mr. Davidson from a City National Bank client manager, asking about funds the lawyer had transferred to Ms. Daniels.
That was the payment to Ms. Daniels to keep her from publicly asserting she’d had a sexual encounter with Mr. Trump. Mr. Davidson told the bank the money had been wired into his account from Essential Consultants to pay a settlement.
Former Playmate Karen McDougal, left, and adult film actress Stephanie Clifford, known as Stormy Daniels.Photo: Zuma Press|, Chris Pizzello/Associated Press
He then called Mr. Cohen, worried that the bank’s singling out of the payment might mean the transaction was under federal investigation. Mr. Cohen, who recorded the conversation, didn’t indicate he was alarmed.
The agents’ raid put the recording in the hands of federal investigators.
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In the months after the raid, investigators interviewed Ms. Hicks and Mr. Schiller. They asked Ms. Hicks about her contacts with Mr. Pecker, the CEO of American Media, publisher of the National Enquirer.
Prosecutors also asked at least one other witness whether Ms. Hicks had coordinated with anyone at American Media concerning a Journal article on Nov. 4, 2016—days before the election—that revealed American Media had paid $150,000 for the rights to former Playboy model Karen McDougal‘s story of an alleged affair with Mr. Trump. The National Enquirer never ran an article about her allegations, a practice known in the tabloid world as “catch and kill.”
David Pecker, CEO of National Enquirer publisher American MediaPhoto: Angela Pham/BFA
Ms. Hicks called Mr. Pecker in November 2016 as she was crafting a response to an inquiry from the Journal. Mr. Pecker told her American Media was issuing a statement saying it had paid Ms. McDougal to contribute articles.
Ms. Hicks was one of Mr. Trump’s closest aides from the beginning of the 2016 campaign and served as a top White House adviser until she left in March 2018, less than three months before she met with Southern District investigators.
Ms. Hicks now is chief communications officer atFox Corp.Fox Corp and Wall Street Journal parentNews Corpshare common ownership.
Mr. Schiller served as security chief for the Trump Organization for more than a decade before joining the White House as director of Oval Office Operations. He left in September 2017.
Investigators were aware he had spoken by phone to Mr. Pecker, and they wanted to know if Mr. Schiller ever handed the phone to Mr. Trump. The Journal couldn’t determine what investigators learned.
In July 2018, investigators sat down with Mr. Pecker, already aware of past conversations between him and Mr. Trump. Mr. Pecker met with Southern District investigators regularly for the rest of the summer, telling them Mr. Cohen and Mr. Trump were involved in the payment scheme.
Hope Hicks, former Trump aide and White House communications directorPhoto: Drew Angerer/Getty Images
Mr. Pecker testified before a grand jury in August, less than a week before Mr. Cohen’s guilty plea and public accusation of Mr. Trump in hush-money payments. Mr. Pecker received immunity, and his company reached a non-prosecution agreement with the government.
Allen Weisselberg, the Trump Organization’s longtime chief financial officer, also testified before a grand jury last summer. He too received immunity, meaning his words wouldn’t be used against him as long as he told the truth.
Since then, prosecutors have examined discrepancies between his account and Mr. Cohen’s. Mr. Cohen told them Mr. Weisselberg had a deeper involvement in the hush payment to Ms. Daniels than Mr. Weisselberg had indicated.
—Joe Palazzolo and Michael Rothfeld contributed to this article.
Write to Nicole Hong at nicole.hong@wsj.com, Rebecca Ballhaus at Rebecca.Ballhaus@wsj.comand Rebecca Davis O’Brien at Rebecca.OBrien@wsj.com
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Trump's projecting again. It's obvious we are in the midst of a far right coup. I guarantee the Mueller report has been seen by the white house and it reccomend Trumps immediate removal. Barrs back is against the wall, he knows the report is going to come out one way or another. If he's all in, he will be going to prison with the rest of them, he will stall as much as possible but it'll all be for naught. That's why theres this mad dash to consolidate power out in the open.
Yup he not trying to go to prison or his family. I wonder what he will do if he loses in 2020
Barr is just openly obstructing justice