Prosecutors Seek Records on Cohen’s ‘Back Channel’ With Giuliani

Before he pleaded guilty and began assisting federal prosecutors last summer, Michael D. Cohen, President Trump’s former fixer, spoke with a lawyer who agreed to reach out to the president’s legal team on his behalf.

The lawyer, Robert J. Costello, had about a dozen conversations with Mr. Trump’s lead lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, according to emails and documents reviewed by The New York Times and interviews with people involved in the matter. In one email, the discussions were characterized as a “back channel of communication.”

During one of the conversations last April, Mr. Costello said in an interview, he asked whether Mr. Trump might put a pardon “on the table” for Mr. Cohen, who was under federal investigation for a variety of possible crimes, including arranging hush-money payments to two women who had said they had affairs with Mr. Trump. Mr. Giuliani told Mr. Costello that the president was unwilling to discuss pardons at that time, Mr. Costello said in the interview, and they did not discuss it again.

View the complete March 13 article by Ben Protess, WIlliam K. Rashbaum and Maggie Haberman on The New York Times website here.