President Trump’s 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 “sham” 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 “election-related” expenses, prosecutors said…

Trump executives decided Cohen should be paid more than he sought — an additional $360,000 for expenses and other fees and taxes, plus a $60,000 bonus, prosecutors said…

The documents point to two unnamed Trump Organization employees who prosecutors say approved the payments — with one executive instructing an employee to describe the fees to Cohen as legal expenses. The employee was instructed to put the words “retainer for the month of January and February 2017” in the description of the first payments, court filings said.