In the document, the prosecutors said they had “effectively concluded” their inquiry, which centered on payments made during the 2016 presidential campaign to buy the silence of two women who said they had had affairs with Trump.
The outcome appears to be a legal victory for Trump, who prosecutors implicated last year in the campaign finance violations. He had denied the affairs and any wrongdoing, but his aides considered the inquiry a greater threat than even the special counsel’s investigation into Russian interference in the election.
At the same time, other newly released documents from the investigation Thursday offered the government’s most detailed account yet of Trump’s involvement, showing that he was in close touch with Michael Cohen, the president’s former lawyer and fixer, while the payments were being arranged.
The day before paying one of the women $130,000 in October 2016, Cohen spoke twice on the phone with Trump, according to the documents, which said that less than 30 minutes later, Cohen took steps to open a bank account to pay the woman.
He also spoke with Trump the day after wiring the money to the woman’s lawyer, the documents said. It is not known what was said during the phone calls.
For the first time, the prosecutors with the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan also revealed that they had expanded their investigation from campaign finance violations to include whether “certain individuals” lied to investigators or tried to obstruct the inquiry.
A brief report filed by prosecutors did not identify the subjects of those investigations, although it contained redactions of what appeared to be at least one name. That investigation has also ended, prosecutors said, although they did not explicitly say that charges would not be filed.
As recently as this spring, prosecutors were still considering whether one Trump Organization executive was untruthful when testifying before the grand jury, according to people briefed on the matter.
The prosecutors had also examined Trump’s conduct but Justice Department policy holds that a sitting president cannot be charged with a federal crime.
The Trump Organization reimbursed Cohen for the hush money he paid to Stormy Daniels, a pornographic film actress. Cohen also urged American Media Inc., which publishes The National Enquirer, to buy the rights to a former Playboy model’s story of an affair with Trump. Both deals effectively silenced the women in the run-up to the 2016 election.
A spokeswoman for the Trump Organization did not respond to a request for comment. Jay Sekulow, a lawyer for Trump, said simply, “Case closed.”
Cohen pleaded guilty in the case. He has said he helped arrange the hush money at the direction of Trump, and prosecutors have since repeated the accusation in court papers. Cohen is serving a three-year prison sentence.
In a statement from a federal prison in Otisville, New York, Cohen criticized the decision to end the inquiry.
“The conclusion of the investigation exonerating the Trump Organization’s role should be of great concern to the American people and investigated by Congress and the Department of Justice,” Cohen said.
The president’s critics in Congress, citing the new disclosures about Trump’s contact with Cohen around the time of the payments, argued that there was sufficient evidence to bring criminal charges against him but for the Justice Department policy.
“The inescapable conclusion from all of the public materials available now is that there was ample evidence to charge Donald Trump with the same criminal election law violations for which Michael Cohen pled guilty,” Rep. Adam Schiff, the California Democrat who chairs the House Intelligence Committee, said in a statement.
The documents released Thursday were related to a 2018 raid on Cohen’s home and office. The prosecutors initially had released the documents in March, with nearly every detail of the campaign finance evidence redacted.
On Wednesday, a federal judge in Manhattan, William H. Pauley III, had ordered prosecutors to release the records without redactions.
The search warrant documents shed light on the breadth of evidence the prosecutors amassed against Cohen even before searching his property and interviewing a number of witnesses. The prosecutors had access to many of his text messages with American Media executives and a lawyer for the two women as well as records of his calls with Trump.
The documents detail the lengths Cohen and Trump campaign aides went — in the final stretch of the campaign — to prevent the public from learning about Daniels and Karen McDougal, a Playboy model.
Hope Hicks, who was Trump’s campaign spokeswoman and a trusted aide, had a more substantial role in discussions about the hush money payments than had been previously known.
In October 2016, in the days leading up to the payments to Daniels, Hicks took part in a series of telephone calls, text messages and email messages. They were with Cohen, Trump, Daniel’s lawyer and two American Media executives — including the head of the company, David J. Pecker, Trump’s longtime friend.
“Based on the timing of these calls, and the content of the text messages and emails, I believe that at least some of these communications concerned the need to prevent Clifford from going public,” an FBI agent wrote in one of the documents, using Daniels’ real name, Stephanie Clifford.
A lawyer for Hicks declined to comment.
The day after Cohen sent the $130,000 payment to the lawyer for Daniels, he spoke to Trump for about five minutes. That evening, the lawyer, Keith Davidson, texted Cohen that “all is AOK,” assuring him that Daniels would sign a nondisclosure agreement soon.
“I hope we are good,” Cohen said to Davidson, who responded: “I assure you. We are very good.”
In early November 2016, The Wall Street Journal reported on American Media’s arrangement with McDougal, who received $150,000 from the tabloid company. The next day, Cohen texted Hicks that the story was “Getting little to no traction.” Hicks responded, “Keep praying!! It’s working!”
Later that day, Trump spoke with Pecker, according to one of the documents. Pecker cooperated with prosecutors, earning American Media a nonprosecution agreement.
Trump won the election three days later.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.