NEW YORK – President Donald Trump's former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, has reached a plea deal with federal prosecutors, according to NBC News.
NBC News reports Cohen, who is expected in court on Tuesday at 4 p.m., will likely plea guilty to charges related to bank fraud, tax fraud and a campaign finance violation, stemming from a federal investigation in New York.
If a deal is reached, it could be a significant blow for Trump. Cohen was part of Trump's inner circle for more than a decade, working as his personal attorney at the Trump Organization and continuing to advise the President after the election.
Cohen once said he would take a bullet for Trump, but the relationship between the two men has frayed since an FBI raid in April of Cohen's office, hotel room and home.
On Tuesday morning, Cohen was seen entering his attorney's office and did not respond to questions. Cohen's attorneys, Guy Petrillo and Lanny Davis, didn't immediately respond to requests for comment. A spokesman for the US attorney's office declined to comment.
It's not clear how any plea deal with Cohen might affect other entities that have been under scrutiny by federal prosecutors as part of the Cohen investigation, including the publisher of the National Enquirer, American Media Inc., which gave a $150,000 contract during the 2016 election cycle to another woman who alleged an affair with Trump.
CNN and the Times reported Sunday that investigators were finalizing criminal charges against Cohen and could announce them by the end of the month.
According to the Times, investigators are trying to determine whether Cohen misrepresented the value of his assets to obtain the loans from two financial institutions that have catered to the taxi industry. They are also scrutinizing whether he failed to properly report his income from taxi medallions to the Internal Revenue Service, the Times reported.
CNN previously reported in April that Cohen is under investigation for possible bank and tax fraud, that his taxi medallions are a focus of the investigation, and that one of the banks that made the loans was Sterling National Bank, whose spokesman declined to comment earlier this month about federal scrutiny of the loans. The Times, citing financial records and people with knowledge of the matter, reported that the other financial institution is the Melrose Credit Union.