Politics- Ex-Trump advisor Kellyanne Conway was back for a 2nd meeting with Manhattan prosecutors Wednesday.
- She directly links Trump to a 2016 hush-money payment to Stormy Daniels, Michael Cohen has alleged.
Kellyanne Conway returned on Wednesday for a second meeting with Manhattan prosecutors, who are probing Donald Trump's alleged involvement in an illegal, 2016 hush-money payment to silence an adult film actress.
—Laura Italiano (@Italiano_Laura) March 8, 2023
A state grand jury has been hearing evidence since January in connection with the payment. The probe could lead to potential business fraud charges that carry anywhere from no jail up to four years prison, former Manhattan financial crimes prosecutors have told Insider.
At least seven witnesses have met with prosecutors about the hush-money scheme this year, according to published reports and Insider's own reporting; it's unknown how many testified before the grand jury.
Conway, whose first meeting with prosecutors was last week, arrived in the early afternoon on Wednesday at one of the Manhattan district attorney's lower Manhattan offices, wearing a bright red dress suit and high beige heels.
She declined to speak with reporters, but laughed and joked with a small group of DA staff who escorted her into the building.
"Watch your step," one DA's office staffer advised Conway as she walked in her stillettos. When the same staffer joked, "Very comfortable shoes," Conway laughed along with the group escorting her.
"Want to trade shoes?" she joked back.
She left two hours later, again without speaking to reporters.
Conway was Trump's campaign manager in 2016, and was widely credited with masterminding his improbable rise to the presidency. She became one of his top White House advisors.
Conway could link Trump to the $130,000 in hush-money at the center of the district attorney's probe, a payment that secured the silence of Stormy Daniels, an adult film actress who was about to go public with her claimed 2006 affair with Trump.
Conway personally relayed to Trump the news that the payment had been completed, Trump's then-attorney, Michael Cohen, has alleged in his 2020 memoir, "Disloyal: A Memoir: The True Story of the Former Personal Attorney to President Donald J. Trump."
When Cohen wanted to relay to Trump that Daniels had been paid off, it was Conway who passed along the welcome development, he wrote.
Conway "said she'd pass along the good news" to Trump, Cohen wrote.
Trump's former White House communications director, Hope Hicks, met with prosecutors Monday and could likewise directly link the former president to the hush-money scheme, according to evidence cited by federal prosecutors in court papers.
Federal prosecutors have alleged that Hicks was a direct witness to a flurry of October 8, 2016, phone calls between Trump, two top executives at the National Enquirer, and Cohen as they scrambled to stamp out a series of election-eve wildfires.
These included not only Daniels' threats of going public, but the surfacing of a vulgar, hot-mic audio tape from 2005 in which Trump boasted to a Access Hollywood reporter about grabbing random women by the genitals.
"So far I see only 6 stories. Getting little to no traction," Cohen texted Hicks as the hush-money payment to Daniels was being negotiated, federal filings say.
"Same. Keep praying!! It's working!" Hicks responded.
A spokeswoman for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has declined to comment on the ongoing investigation.
Cohen, the hush-money's admitted bag man, is a key witness who has met with Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's Trump-probe team six times since January, most recently on Tuesday.
He said Tuesday that Bragg's decision on whether or not to seek a grand jury indictment against Trump is coming "soon."
He also took a not-so-veiled shot at Conway — who infamously referred to "alternative facts" back in 2017, in discussing the size of Trump's inauguration crowd. "There's no alternative facts here," Cohen told reporters before going inside to meet with prosecutors on Tuesday. "The documentary evidence speaks for itself."