We just learned that former Trump White House adviser Kellyanne Conway reportedly met on Wednesday with Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s prosecutors, who are investigating Donald Trump.
According to The New York Times report on the meeting, which hasn’t been confirmed by NBC News or MSNBC, it’s “the latest sign that the office is ramping up its criminal investigation into the former president.”
You might be wondering: What could Conway have to do with Trump’s 2016 hush money payment to porn actress Stormy Daniels — a transaction Bragg is reportedly investigating?
Well, the Times report recalled that former Trump lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen had said that Conway, who was managing Trump’s 2016 campaign, played a “small yet notable role” in the payment: She was the person Cohen alerted after making it. The Times recounted Cohen writing in his 2020 memoir:
“I called Trump to confirm that the transaction was completed, and the documentation all in place, but he didn’t take my call — obviously a very bad sign, in hindsight,” he wrote. Instead, he wrote, Ms. Conway “called and said she’d pass along the good news.”
Therefore, one way that Conway may be relevant to the Manhattan DA’s investigation is the extent to which she corroborates Cohen’s account. (Trump has denied any wrongdoing and has also denied having an affair with Daniels.) As “Deadline: White House” viewers know, Cohen, a frequent show guest, has said he has met more than a dozen times with the DA’s office, which has reportedly been presenting evidence to a grand jury impaneled in January. As is the case for any key witness, especially one like Cohen, whose credibility will be attacked by defense lawyers in any ensuing case, corroboration is essential. And if Conway — of “alternative facts” fame — claims to have a different recollection than Cohen about the events of 2016? Then that’s something that a prosecutor pondering a case against Trump wants to know sooner rather than later.
Jordan Rubin is the Deadline: Legal Blog writer. He was a prosecutor for the New York County District Attorney’s Office in Manhattan and is the author of “Bizarro," a book about the secret war on synthetic drugs. Before he joined MS NOW, he was a legal reporter for Bloomberg Law.
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