The interview focused in part on Trump’s relationship with Deutsche Bank, his biggest and longest-standing creditor, according to the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The interview, at least the second with Cohen by the Manhattan district attorney, comes amid a long-running grand jury investigation into Trump’s business dealings.
The district attorney, Cyrus Vance Jr, has been waging a protracted legal battle to get access to the president’s tax records. The US supreme court is expected to rule on Trump’s request for a stay and a further appeal after he leaves office on 20 January.
Vance, a Democrat, has has declined to provide details about the investigation. But court filings have pointed to news reports of what prosecutors described as “extensive and protracted criminal conduct at the Trump Organization”.
Among the reports Vance’s office referenced in court filings was a 2017 article about Ladder Capital, a commercial mortgage lender that made more than $250m in loans to the Trump Organization, secured by Trump properties.
Jack Weisselberg, the son of the Trump Organization’s chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, is a director of Ladder Capital.
The New York investigation is one of several legal entanglements likely to intensify as Trump loses power – and any immunity from prosecution he might have as a sitting president.