Federal prosecutors in Manhattan have interviewed several former aides to President Trump, including Hope Hicks, as part of their investigation into hush-money payments made to women who claim they had affairs with the president, according to a report on Wednesday.
Investigators with the US Attorney’s Office grilled Hicks, the onetime White House communications director, last spring as well as Keith Schiller, the president’s former security chief, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Schiller had made calls to David Pecker, the chief executive of the National Enquirer’s publisher, who has admitted paying $150,000 to former Playboy Playmate Karen McDougal to kill her story about the president, the report said.
Hicks was quizzed about any contacts she had with Pecker.
The US Attorney’s Office also has a recorded phone conversation between Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer and fixer, and an attorney who represented McDougal and porn star Stormy Daniels.
The report said prosecutors have gathered information showing that Trump was involved in the payments before Cohen made the claim in court last August.
Cohen paid Daniels $130,000 weeks before the 2016 election to keep her quiet about an affair she alleged she had with Trump a decade earlier.
Prosecutors are looking at the payments as illegal campaign contributions because they were made to influence the election, the newspaper reported.
In court documents released in December, prosecutors identified Trump as the “Individual 1” who coordinated the payments.
Trump has dismissed the women’s allegations and denied any wrongdoing.
His lawyer Jay Sekulow declined a request for comment from the Wall Street Journal.
Cohen pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations, tax evasion and lying to Congress and was sentenced to three years in prison.
He is scheduled to report to prison on May 6.



