Cohen’s hush money discloses the investigation of a former president’s corporate communications dealing with an American citizen: the National Enquirer publisher and the Trump Organization

He told CNN on Wednesday that he gave his cell phones to Manhattan prosecutors.

Cohen and federal prosecutors agree that the hush-money payments were made at the direction of Trump, as well as that Cohen acted in coordination with him.

He also responded to the release of a video of a deposition Trump gave in August to the New York Attorney General’s office, in which he invoked his Fifth Amendment rights more than 400 times and declined to answer questions, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter.

“Donald cannot keep track of the lies that he tells, and so, what better way to stop a fool from being deposed and hurting himself further than to tell him to plead the Fifth at least 400 times,” Cohen said.

The Daniels incident is being investigated by prosecutors in Manhattan and the disclosure on Wednesday of Cohen is the most recent sign of that.

According to CNN, a former National Enquirer publisher was set to meet with prosecutors this week. The district attorney’s office also reached out to Davidson, who represented Daniels in the hush money deal, in recent weeks.

After Cohen made the $130,000 payment to Daniels, he was reimbursed, federal prosecutors said in court filings, by the Trump Organization. The company’s executives authorized payments to him totaling $420,000 to cover his original payment and tax liabilities, and reward him with a bonus, according to federal prosecutors. The company is accused of faking legal expenses in their corporate books.

The prosecutors on the case were unsure if a charge of violating the federal election law would survive legal challenges, people familiar with the investigation told CNN.

The lawyer for Daniels said that the communications between Daniels and the attorney have been turned over to the Manhattan district attorney.

legal experts say that the information he obtained from Daniels would not be allowed to be used against her as a witness and that there would be an attempt to screen what he knows from the rest of the Trump team.

It would ultimately be up to a judge to decide whether the communications amount to a conflict of interest that requires disqualification or some other limitation on the advocacy Tacopina can do on behalf of the former president, if a case is brought against Trump.

There have been signs that the investigation is ending, but it’s not clear if Trump will be charged or when those charges will be made public.

Will the case against Donald J. Tacopina be prosecuted for bringing an end to the counsel-client correspondence? An attorney’s perspective

Brewster told CNN he handed the Daniels’ communications over to prosecutors after seeing Tacopina make public statements that Brewster believes were contrary to what’s evident in Tacopina’s and his firms’ emails with Daniels.

In the interview, Tacopina said that he couldn’t discuss his impressions or conversations because of attorney-client privilege. As the old interview clip began making the rounds again, Tacopina’s firm issued a statement this weekend that said “there was no attorney-client relationship” – a point Tacopina stands by today.

Even if no relationship is established, a lawyer who has been made aware of a prospective client may not use or reveal that information.

It would be up to the prosecutors or Daniels to raise objections to him or his firm cross-examining her, according to Stephen Gillers, a New York University School of Law professor who has written extensively about legal ethics and rules. The judge would then decide the matter.

Gillers thinks there would have to be a real need for Tacopina to be disqualified. It is necessary for him to testify that the witness-advocate rule does not make him fit for the judge.

The ethics rules were put in place to protect Daniels, and Trump as well, said Bruce Green, director of the Louis Stein Center for Law and Ethics. If Trump’s attorney felt he had to fight for him, then he may be placed in an unfair position.

Still, Green called the disqualification question a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” question for judges, since disqualifying a lawyer deprives a defendant the counsel of his or her choice.

It’s possible that prosecutors would ask that Trump waive any potential conflict, so that he could not raise the conflict as an issue if he is charged and convicted and seeks to appeal.