The documents show that Cohen’s business dealings had already been the subject of an extensive investigation by the time FBI agents conducted a highly public raid on his home and office nine months later, in April of last year.
They also show how little the public knew about the Russian investigation in real time as prosecutors zeroed in on Cohen, revealing some of the investigative steps they took to obtain evidence through search warrants in Washington and New York.
Prosecutors, for instance, unearthed bank payments from a New York investment firm tied to Viktor Vekselberg, a billionaire Russian businessman with ties to the Kremlin who met with Cohen in his Trump Tower office just days before the inauguration, the documents show.
The public did not learn of those payments, or that Mueller’s prosecutors later interviewed Vekselberg, until almost a year later.
The records, including search warrants and materials related to the April raid, were among hundreds of pages of documents released in response to a request by The New York Times and other news organizations.
Lanny J. Davis, a lawyer for Cohen, said in a statement Monday night that the release furthered Cohen’s “interest in continuing to cooperate and providing information and the truth about Donald Trump and the Trump organization to law enforcement and Congress.”
One newly released search warrant said that the FBI and Manhattan federal prosecutors were investigating Cohen for a range of crimes, including defrauding several banks dating back to 2016 and a scheme “to make an illegal campaign contribution in October 2016 to then-presidential candidate Donald Trump.” The warrant also indicated they were investigating him for wire fraud and conspiracy.
Late last year, Cohen pleaded guilty to violating campaign finance laws, financial crimes and lying to Congress in two separate prosecutions, one filed by the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York and the other by Mueller’s office.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.