Cohen says DA took phones for renewed Trump hush-money probe

By JIM MUSTIAN and MICHAEL R. SISAK
Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump’s long-estranged former lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen, says Manhattan prosecutors recently took his cellphones to preserve evidence related to a hush-money payment he made to porn actress Stormy Daniels in the waning weeks of the 2016 presidential campaign. The payment to Daniels, which Cohen says was intended to buy her silence about an alleged sexual encounter with Trump, has been the subject of law-enforcement scrutiny for years, but a new grand jury is giving it a fresh look by a new grand jury. Cohen said Wednesday that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office asked for the phones because it wants to extract voice recordings of conversations he had with a lawyer for Daniels, as well as emails and text messages.