President Trumpâs real estate company authorized paying $420,000 to lawyer Michael Cohen in his effort to silence women during the presidential campaign and then relied on âshamâ invoices from Cohen that concealed the nature of the payments, according to legal filings released Tuesday. The payments began flowing in February 2017, soon after Trump took office, when Cohen approached Trump Organization executives seeking to be reimbursed for âelection-relatedâ expenses, prosecutors said.