Longtime Trump lawyer Michael Cohen gained access to as much as $774,000 in two bank transactions during the 2016 presidential campaign, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday.
Citing public real estate records, the Journal said that Cohen doubled a bank credit line in February 2016 tied to his Manhattan apartment, enabling him to borrow as much as $245,000.
Three months earlier, Cohen gained potential access to another $529,000, through a new mortgage that he and his wife cosigned on a condo owned by her parents at Trump World Tower, a Trump property in New York.
Neither Cohen nor his attorney returned a request seeking comment.
Cohen has said that he used a home-equity line of credit to pay $130,000 to adult-film star Stormy Daniels to keep allegations of an affair with Trump in 2006 from becoming public.
However, the Journal reported that "it isn't clear" whether Cohen used the home-equity money to make the Daniels payment "or for personal reasons."
FBI agents raided Cohen's office, home and hotel room last month, seizing documents relating to the $130,000 payment and other information.
They were armed with search warrants based in part on information obtained from Russia special counsel Robert Mueller's investigators.
The Journal reported that federal prosecutors and the FBI were examining whether Cohen "committed bank fraud by making false statements inflating the value of his assets to obtain loans or by misstating the intended purpose of the loans."
In addition, Cohen is under investigation for possibly violating federal election laws by making unreported campaign contributions to Trump that exceeded the federal limit of $5,400 per election cycle.
Rudy Giuliani, the former New York City mayor who is now one of Trump's personal lawyers, told Fox News Wednesday that the president had reimbursed Cohen for the $130,000 payment via a retainer for $35,000 a month.
Giuliani also suggested that the payment was related to the campaign, though he said in a Friday statement that the funds would have been reimbursed whether the campaign was going on or not.
President Trump confirmed the retainer on Twitter on Thursday, but on Friday apparently disputed Giuliani's statements — saying the former mayor would soon "get his facts straight."
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.