FBI Seizes Documents From Trump’s Lawyer Michael Cohen
Trump has called the raid “a disgraceful situation.”
The New York Times has reported that the FBI raided the office of President Donald Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen. They seized documents related to a $130,000 payment to porn star Stormy Daniels, who claims she had an affair with Trump, along with other material after they received a referral from Special Counsel Robert Mueller.
From The New York Times:
Federal prosecutors in Manhattan obtained the search warrant after receiving a referral from the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, according to Mr. Cohen’s lawyer, who called the search “completely inappropriate and unnecessary.” The search does not appear to be directly related to Mr. Mueller’s investigation, but likely resulted from information he had uncovered and gave to prosecutors in New York.
“Today the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York executed a series of search warrants and seized the privileged communications between my client, Michael Cohen, and his clients,” said Stephen Ryan, his lawyer. “I have been advised by federal prosecutors that the New York action is, in part, a referral by the Office of Special Counsel, Robert Mueller.”
A source told the NYT that the authorities took “emails, tax documents and business records” along with the material on Daniels. The Wall Street Journal reported that a raid also took place at Cohen’s home.
The records include communications between Daniels and Trump even though communications between lawyer and client are protected.
Trump has called the raid “a disgraceful situation” and “an attack on our country.”
Michael Cohen attorney Stephen Ryan on FBI raid: “The decision by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New York to conduct their investigation using search warrants is completely inappropriate and unnecessary.”
— Steve Brusk (@stevebruskCNN) April 9, 2018
Cohen attorney: “I have been advised by federal prosecutors that the New York action is, in part, a referral by the Office of Special Counsel, Robert Mueller.”
— Steve Brusk (@stevebruskCNN) April 9, 2018
Michael Cohen attorney on FBI raid: “These government tactics are also wrong because Mr. Cohen has cooperated completely with all government entities, including providing thousands of non-privileged documents to the Congress and sitting for depositions under oath.”
— Steve Brusk (@stevebruskCNN) April 9, 2018
Brusk tweeted out that Trump watched the reports on TV of the raid. He also said that Trump knew about the raid before the NYT broke the story, but we do not know if he has spoken to Cohen.
Mueller has eyed Cohen for some time now in his Russian investigation. Last month, Mueller “requested documents and interviewed witnesses about incidents” that involved Cohen. The Washington Post noted that nothing shows any indication “that Cohen is a subject or target of the investigation.”
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Comments
What possible relevance does this have for the Democrats Russian wet dream??
Apparently, none. That’s why Mueller referred it to the US Attorney for the Southern District of NY.
It could be a fib on loan application, a fib on a tax return, an unpaid parking ticket, whatever. Who knows what else they may dredge up. This will always happen whenever you take business as usual and subject it to exacting scrutiny.
How is this at all allowed by DOJ, and committed by Mueller?
It is now time to openly discuss arrest and prosecution of Mueller.
If nothing comes of this raid, Mueller, and the SDNY acting USA just ended their careers (Mueller’s is already finished).
Rosenstein and Mueller cooperated regarding a Rosenstein memo designed to give the false impression of pre-authorization by Rosenstein of one of Mueller’s improper actions. That seems like a conspiracy to obstruct justice.
You mean the ex-post memo of authorization for Mueller?
Of course that was CYA, but it cannot conclusively be proven that Rosenstein wrote that in response to the Manafort raid.
I want to know who at DOJ signed off on this raid, and if it was Sessions we have large problem with the secret deep state investigations ongoing.
Oh, something will come of it, even if Mueller has to invent a violation or withhold more evidence as he did with the Whitey Bulger case
So now the FBI guy is looking into prostitutes and panties? Seriously? This guy is a joke.
Not a joke, corrupt
Wouldn’t surprise me if stuff collected suddenly starts appearing in the media.
as in tomorrow – what a dung heap the DOJ is, make sure they use baby wipes.
So, what is this thing I always heard about… attorney/client privilege?
BTW, I read that all major news outlets publish exact same story within 6 minutes. Must be a coincidence.
Every media outlet…cable, magazine, free TV, radio, magazine….all owned by SIX companies. That’s it. I’m surprised it took six long minutes to “news”.
There is no attorney/client privilege to commit, conspire in, aide or abet fraud, or commit, conspire in, or aid or abet any crime and even some torts.
Which is exactly as it should be.
Not according the Stephen Ryan: “Today the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York executed a series of search warrants and seized the privileged communications between my client, Michael Cohen, and his clients”
Sure, that is what the attorney and the client will say.
In most jurisdictions the prosecuting attorney, or opposing attorney in a civil matter, can attempt to establish facts demonstrating that the purpose of the attorney and client communications were to commit one of the bad acts that Ragspierre lists, and the prosecuting attorney has the burden of establishing that. The faithful judge likely would look at the documents and decide who prevails on the issue of whether the documents are privileged.
The down votes do seem strange.
Those down-votes could very well indicate some awareness of the fact that Clinton’s co-conspirators in the very acts that he cites not only were not investigated, they were given immunity – or allowed to be designated her attorney for the apparent purpose of allowing her to invoke the very privilege that is now being attacked when it applies to Trump.
IF that were the case, why didn’t they just say so?
All I did was state a legal FACT. Why attack me?
It’s interesting that a bald statement of fact is down-voting by idiots here.
What I said is simply a statement of FACT, and it is really quite a good and defensible policy.
I don’t give a good shit what an interested lawyer “says”. Look it up, hateful morons.
The heavyhanded tactics used against Trump,juxtaposed against the kids glove treatment given to Hillary is stunning
We have just entered the Twilight Zone. We’re nearing a Boris Yeltsin moment.
It’s time to shut Mueller down.
We have yet to see the true desperation that will be forthcoming when the Horowitz IG report comes out. Mueller and Co are grasping at straws at this point. It’s going to be an interesting summer…
I hope you are correct.
I’m not sure why I should put any faith into anything I have heard about the upcoming IG report.
The IG report has been scheduled to be released “this week” for…what?…three months now? We’re being played.
If this is not a witch hunt, nothing is.
Why does he still have his license?
So if Cohen paid Stormy to stay quiet and Trump knew or directed, what statute was violated?
My understanding of this is whether campaign funds were used ti make the payment. If so, it would be a federal violation.
And what if campaign funds weren’t? Is it still a violation? Or can be massaged into becoming one?
By itself, I don’t see this as being much of an issue. More of how any wrong-doing, or appearance thereof, might be joined with other issues to build a case for obstruction.
In one report I read it is believed to be tied to public talk from Trump regarding the porn star, yet, that isn’t sworn statements, so if this is what it is about, then this is just a heavy handed, and very possibly illegal move by Mueller.
Any of the information gathered from the raid is fruit of the poisoned tree, which makes any prosecution on it null.
Mueller has crossed so many lines with his tactics, you know he is likely as dirty as so many others in this coup effort.
oldgoat36,
It’s puzzling to me. Either he’s throwing up a massive smokescreen, or he’s floundering to find a way to have it all brought to an end by someone other than himself, or he enjoys deep-sea fishing even when there have been few bites.
Oldgoat,
That is all besides the point. Once the information enters the public arena…and don’t kid yourself because it will enter the public arena shortly, then its game over.
One almost thinks that this was the end goal of this raid…to get information damaging to the President (but only in the minds of the small minded liberals) in to the public arena ahead of the mid term elections and to continue to fuel the eternally outrageously outragety resistance.
What campaign funds? Trump wasn’t running for anything twelve years ago when the alleged “liaison” occurred. When was the alleged $130,000 allegedly paid?
snopercod: Trump wasn’t running for anything twelve years ago when the alleged “liaison” occurred. When was the alleged $130,000 allegedly paid?
Interesting point. For some reason, even though the relationship ended over a decade ago, an agreement was entered into just days before the 2016 presidential election. Surely, it was just a coincidence of timing.
Great — Mueller is now investigating a payoff to an adult film actress. Real national security-related stuff going on, here! Mueller is digging deep!
Trump should have quashed a DEA investigation into hezb’allah’s U.S. cocaine-peddling operations, as St. Obama the Infallible did, or, perhaps, have ensured that Russia got access to 25% of the U.S.’s uranium reserves, as crone Hillary did — then we could be certain that federal law enforcement wouldn’t give a damn about him.
Seriously, the upside, here, is that Mueller now confirms that his entire farcical machinations are designed for the sole purpose of harassing, hindering and undermining Trump and his Administration. What was readily apparent, before, is now thoroughly confirmed.
Yes, everybody knows, but that’s how it goes.
At what point does this have to reach to see the comatose Sessions take action? Mueller is a crooked investigator, how is this a legal action? I hope this brings down the judge who had to sign off on it too, and let me guess, the judge was an Obama appointee.
I’ve always thought that Mueller, et al. have something heavy on Sessions or his family. Something heavy enough that he won’t interfere in this or even let him resign. They want Trump to have to fire him and then trigger a crap storm of media on it.
The FBI missed yet another deadline to produce documents that the House has demanded for over a year.
Now this.
House members are fed up. I don’t think it is crazy to think the House may vote to impeach Sessions and/or FBI Director Wray. If they get impeached in the House, do they want a trial in the Senate, or would they rather resign?
They are now openly discussing impeachment and removal of Rosenstein and Wray.
Not enough of them are upset.
Mueller may have provided this information, whatever it is, but it is not “by” Mueller, it is by Acting AG Rosenstein and this U.S. Attorney in New York State.
I’d like a coherent explanation of why this entire matter is not a civil issue to be handled by the courts. But, I refuse to babysit grown adults (at least, ones with full faculties). If anyone did anything wrong, I will not lift a finger to excuse it. But… yes, why are these attorney-client materials the business of the DoJ? I am curious?
Looks like they need new material to leak.
Question for the lawyers out there: If Federal prosecutors swept down on your office and confiscated all the confidential attorney/client documents you had on *all* your clients while claiming to only be after one, what would be your next step?
(reads Popehat’s article)
A couple of predictions:
1) A search warrant for Attorney/Client privileged docs is supposed to require a significant process and multiple approvals. I’m fairly confident they skipped a few, if not most.
2) Documents seized by such a raid are supposed to be isolated and gone through by a ‘dirty team’ to separate out the relevant bits for the prosecution team. I’m fairly confident that every item will be copied and passed on for examination before the ‘dirty team’ has a chance to go through the whole haul. It fits with their history.
3) The absence of information discovered will be regarded by the Left (and prosecution) as evidence of a conspiracy with destruction of said mythical evidence to be stated as fact instead of fantasy. This will, of course, be front page material for the full MSM, with hyperventilation as they theorize and conjure mythical beasts from the primordial ooze until they have built entire castles in the sky.
This is Mueller’s strategy.
He has jack shit on Trump. He knows it, Trump knows it, everybody with a brain knows it.
This is him trying to goad Trump into publicly firing him so the Democrats can scream and whine about it.
And he SHOULD be fired. This is a joke.
If I may repeat myself, this is not a joke, even though the Lefts is amused, this is corruption!
wow. They are desperate. Given the ridiculous comment by Joy Reid about Trump resisting arrest, I have to wonder if they really think they can do it. Sheesh. That’ will immediately spark a civil war.
Mueller is playing the hardest of hardball against the President of the United States. Why on Earth doesn’t Trump fire him and shut down this entire fiasco of an investigation?
And we thought that J.Edgar Hoover was BAD and engaged in extortion! Apparently, Mueller is just the same sort of self-righteous and arrogant man. This is a bridge too far.
no one said a word when Mueller took Manafort’s communications with attorneys
Quite a bit was said, unless you are speaking og CNN.
Unwilling to admit investigative defeat to fellow Trump-hating liberals, Mueller sets up his own firing.
so much for Attorney Client Privilege.. since this has happened TWICE it’s now a thing of the past since Special Mueller’s been appointed
I am consoled by this thought: Mueller has just stepped into President Trump’s trap. I have watched President Trump dodge far more challenging opponents than this odious bureaucrat since May 2016, when I started covering him regularly for LI. When President Trump said “ask my lawyer”, the trap was laid. It is now sprung…and we will see Mueller get his comeuppance.
I hope you are right!
Sprung how?
Trump fires Mueller and/or Rosenstein?
That gets him impeached.
I don’t think Trump anticipated this, and it badly exposes Sessions, who now has to do something, yet seemingly has recused himself from law.
The full implosion of FBI and DOJ is now underway.
Oh really? What comeuppance would that be?
The trap, if this was one, is that now the President has a completely legitimate reason for firing Mueller and Rosenstein, if not Sessions. It’s obvious that Mueller has exceeded the scope of his original charter and Rosenstein let him do it. If Trump fires them both, most Americans will cheer. The liberals will go nuts of course, but then they’re already nuts.
Re: what law was violated by the payment?
As I understand it, the payment could be construed as a campaign finance violation (if someone other than Trump was the source of the funds, regardless if the funds actually came from the campaign) if the payment was not reported as a campaign contribution.
I think the theory goes like this: the payment kept the allegations/story out of the media during the 11th hour of the campaign; Trump’s campaign benefitted by not having to deal with the allegation/story; therefore any funds used to (indirectly) benefit his campaign should have been reported and would be subject to contribution limits. I think the limits apply to actual money and the equivalent value of any benefits provided (e.g., air time for ads, travel, campaign materials, etc).
If I’m not mistaken, John Edwards was prosecuted under federal election laws for something similar (someone else paid for his mistress’ baby expenses or something like that).
Against Trump the case would be even WEAKER than against Edwards.
Edwards solicited nearly $1 million from OTHER PEOPLE (including his campaign finance chairman) to be paid directly to his mistress, and claimed since the money never actually went through any campaign accounts it wasn’t campaign contributions.
Trump’s lawyer directly paid off Daniels and nobody has even attempted to claim it was with anything other than Trump’s money. And with the paltry amount involved does anybody believe it WASN’T Trump’s money?
So on the one hand we have Edwards soliciting large donations from political donors to his campaign to be paid to the woman he was screwing and who had his baby.
On the other hand we have Trump’s lawyer using Trump’s personal money to pay a hooker to keep her mouth shut about a one night stand 10 years ago.
There is NO applicably finance law here.
That is not true
Ok, so maybe it was the lawyer using his money? How is that a campaign finance violation?
It would exceed the limits for such donations by many multiples.
Edwards paid his hooker with a campaign job as videographer. Just because Trump benefitted by Stormy’s silence, doesn’t make it a campaign contribution any more that if I paid some kid to put up a Trump 2020 sign in my front yard
That would be a contribution if you coordinated it with the campaign, let alone if you were yourself part of the campaign.
Does anyone besides me think that going after Trump for a campaign finance violation sets up a precedent for going after Hllary?
I doubt that Mueller or the FBI have any serious intentions of doing anything against Hillary or Obama. Obama took lots of money from overseas, they were never vetted, and not a thing was done.
On what grounds?
No.
Have you not learned over the past couple of years Hillary and democrats have a separate set of rules that are used for them than Trump. And we all know which way it leans.
Hillary will not be gone after as she knows who got the bribe money from the Uranium One deal that Muell weras “investigating”
The quality of the Legal Insurrection posts has dramatically decreased. It’s nothing more than conspiracy theories and some of these comments are truly idiotic. See, e.g., “Mueller has just stepped into President Trumps trap.” What makes people think that POTUS is playing cheese when he can’t put together a coherent sentence? What type of “genius” plays chicken with a special prosecutor? Just give it up people. POTUS is a disgrace and will, in all likelihood, be impeached.
And, you suppose that yours has dramatically increased the quality of them?!
“The quality of the Legal Insurrection posts has dramatically decreased.”
Certainly true since you showed up.
Impeached for what?
Hey Borat….speaking of coherent sentences…..
“What makes people think that POTUS is playing cheese when he can’t put together a coherent sentence”
What is this game of cheese you talking about?
Do you play it with crackers….or ham, maybe?
wish they had investigated fast and furious with this zeal.
Who’s draining what?
Borat, I know nothing of this “playing cheese” to which you refer (is it a pastime in Kazakhstan?), but if you don’t find the posts or comments here worth your time, why not move along? I imagine the value of what you’ve received has far exceeded your contribution(s).
On referral from Mueller?? WTF. What does Stormy Daniels have to do with anything>
When does Mueller go after Comey’s “attorney”, I mean friend who he leaked confidential / classified info to to start the whole Mueller investigation? I mean Comey only called him his attorney after it became clear he had screwed up.
I will wait for the news story on going after that guy and his office. My guess is I’ll be waiting a long time, despite it being very suspect with underlying illegal conduct that Comey is trying to hide behind attorney client privilege.
And just yesterday, we had this “hypothetical” piece on MSNBC: https://legalinsurrection.com/2018/04/msnbcs-joy-reid-wonders-what-would-happen-if-trump-resists-arrest-by-federal-marshals/.
What a coincidence.
That fact worries me a little bit. After Fast and Furious, the Iran deal, the email scandal, the uranium one scandal, etc., I hope this is not thug government out of control.
It is!
I suspect that the IG is ready to drop a few shoes. This was expected. As for Trump, if they really have something on him, he is not going to go down without a fight and he will be taking a lot of the swamp with him. Talk about someone who knows where all the bodies are.
If Mueller really did this based on a payout to the porn star, I would think this is a big 4th Amendment violation and it is going to entrap a good portion of the NYC FBI.
This was not expected. It is beyond extraordinary to pierce attorney-client privilege, much less of a sitting president.
Mueller’s entire investigation is one giant 4th Amendment violation.
I expect they will be throwing everything including the kitchen sink at him. Looks like the sink just came flying. The tub is next, but they forget the baby is in that bath.
How can the FBI be creditable when they have failed to frame Trump after over a year of trying.
I am betting more fire works tomorrow. There are a lot of people in this mess all the way to Obama. You bet they are going to be fighting hard.
Just remember how Mueller screwed up Enron!
Everyone here needs to do themselves a favor and find Mark Levin’s segment with Andy McCarthy, a VERY experienced Federal prosecutor. I heard it on the radio coming home, but you’ll likely find it on the internet in several places. I just got home, or I’d post a link or two.
Or you could wallow in your crapulance.
Always a choice you have, and many here make.
Rags, a true evil troll.
May they come for you first
No, gonzoracist, I’m not a troll, but a practicing Texas and Federal attorney.
You are a lying, racist puke on the internets. I TRY to post information people could benefit by absorbing. I won’t be silenced or called names by the likes of you.
I KNOW you didn’t bother listening to McCarthy before you vomited your “comment” here.
Business must not be very good for foul-mouthed attorneys in Texas because you seem to be spending all your time here on LI insulting everyone.
As usual, you’re just stupidly wrong. Stupid.