The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office is resuscitating its criminal probe into former President Donald Trump’s role in hush-money payments made to porn star Stormy Daniels, sources confirmed to The Post on Monday.
While the office’s long-running investigation into Trump, 76, appeared to go cold earlier this year, District Attorney Alvin Bragg and his prosecutors are optimistic about building a case against the 45th president, a source familiar with the probe said.
The development, first reported by the New York Times, relates to a $130,000 payment made to Daniels in the lead-up to the 2016 presidential election in a bid to buy her silence over her alleged affair with Trump.
Trump’s former personal lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen, said he used his own funds to pay off Daniels — and that Trump and his business, the Trump Organization, later reimbursed him.
Cohen, who alleged he was following Trump’s orders, went on to serve three years in prison after pleading guilty in 2018 to campaign finance violations related to the payments as part of a federal probe.
That federal case prompted Manhattan prosecutors, under former District Attorney Cyrus Vance, to look into whether Trump had broken any state laws with the payment — including whether any Trump Organization records were falsified in the process.
The DA’s Office had subpoenaed the Trump Org in late 2019 for records tied to payments Cohen helped arrange for Daniels. But the investigation then appeared to shift gears and focus on Trump’s broader business practices.
Trump, who has long denied having an affair with Daniels, has previously insisted the payment was a personal matter and not a campaign expense.
Prosecutors are said to be revisiting whether the Trump Org’s finance chief, Allen Weisselberg, could be pressured into cooperating with the renewed probe, according to the source.
Weisselberg, who allegedly had knowledge of the hush-money payment, has pleaded guilty to tax fraud charges in a criminal case involving the Trump Org that is playing out in Manhattan Supreme Court.
The longtime Trump confidant has copped to accepting $1.7 million in perks “off the books” — including free rent on an Upper West Side apartment, luxury cars and tuition payments for his grandchildren — from the Trump Org as part of a scheme to skirt income taxes.
Weisselberg agreed to testify as a prosecution witness in exchange for a five-month prison stint.
The DA’s Office is weighing whether to bring fresh charges — unrelated to the hush payments — against Weisselberg to potentially secure his cooperation, the source said.
The renewed inquiry adds to the flurry of legal and political drama that Trump — who has announce he’ll run for president again in 2024 — and his family business are embroiled in.
Bragg’s office declined to comment Monday on the fresh probe, instead pointing to a statement released this past spring that insisted its investigation into the Trump Org remained ongoing after the two prosecutors leading it quit in February.
Cohen, as well as an attorney for Daniels, said they had yet to be contacted by the DA’s Office.
