Stormy Daniels 'to meet prosecutors on Michael Cohen case'

Stormy Daniels will meet federal prosecutors in New York on Monday as part of their investigation into the president’s former longtime personal attorney Michael Cohen, a source familiar with the matter has said.

Monday’s interview with prosecutors from the US attorney’s office in Manhattan is in preparation for a possible grand jury appearance as they work to assemble a case against Cohen, the person said.

If prosecutors bring a case to a grand jury, they could call witnesses to testify under oath and the grand jury would decide whether to bring criminal charges with a written indictment. Unlike a trial jury, a grand jury does not determine guilt or innocence.

Daniels and her attorney, Michael Avenatti, have also turned over documents in response to a subpoena from federal prosecutors about the $130,000 that Daniels was paid as part of a confidentiality agreement days before the 2016 presidential election, the person familiar with the matter said. They weren’t authorised to discuss the matter publicly and spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, has said she had sex with Trump in 2006 when he was married. Trump has denied any sexual relationship with Daniels.

Daniels is suing to invalidate the confidentiality agreement that prevents her from discussing it. She argues the nondisclosure agreement should not stand because Cohen, rather than Trump, signed it.

In April, FBI agents raided Cohen’s home, office and hotel room as part of an investigation into his business dealings. Investigators were seeking records about the nondisclosure agreement that Daniels had signed, among other things.

Cohen had said he paid Daniels himself, through a limited liability company known as Essential Consultants, LLC, and that “neither the Trump Organization nor the Trump campaign was a party to the transaction with Ms Clifford, and neither reimbursed me for the payment, either directly or indirectly”.

In May, Rudy Giuliani, one of Trump’s attorneys, said the president had repaid Cohen for the $130,000 payment to Daniels, contradicting Trump’s prior claims that he didn’t know the source of the money.

This month, Trump said he hadn’t spoken to Cohen – his longtime fixer and a key power player in the Trump Organization – in “a long time” and that Cohen was “not my lawyer any more.”