On Monday (Apr.9) a dozen federal agents swooped down on the offices of the President’s family friend and attorney, Michael Cohen. Many became familiar with Michael Cohen as the attorney who allegedly paid $130,000 to the adult film Actress Stephanie Clifford, also known as Stormy Daniels, as a part of a non-disclosure agreement. Daniels' has also filed a lawsuit in order to tell her side of the story about the Trump affair. He is also the same attorney that has handled other matters for Trump and has become known as Trump’s “fixe.r”
Stephen Ryan, the attorney for Michael Cohen issued an early statement to the New York Times, stating, “Today the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York executed a series of search warrants to seize privileged communications between my client, Michael Cohen, and his clients.” Ryan also said the seizure was unnecessary considering Cohen has been providing non-privileged documents to the Mueller case.
What are they looking for?
What they are looking for is unknown but the case may be over the large payments to Stormy. The payment has also raised red flags and could possibly be financial campaign and election law violations considering the payment occurred during the campaign and prior to the 2016 election.
In early speculation, CNN’s Michael Zeldin who served as a special assistant to Robert Mueller at the Department of Justice said special counsel Mueller most likely saw evidence of criminal wrongdoing during his investigation and reported it to his superior, Rod Rosenstein, which is exactly what happened. It is also important to note that reporting this to his boss would have been necessary since it would have been out of his purview and jurisdiction for the Russia case.
The FBI's, Rod Rosenstein, who was appointed by Trump shared the information with New York's Southern District as he was allowed to do under the law. Upon receiving the information, New York’s US Attorney Jeff Berman, who is also a Trump appointee, put the case together and secured the warrant.
However, Trump noted in a rare public press conference on Monday (Apr.
9) evening that the FBI broke into Michael Cohen’s office. This, of course, is not true. The federal agents had multiple warrants which judges signed off on because they found probable cause and evidence of criminal activity.
CNN legal analyst, Anne Milgram, confirmed the latter and added that if a warrant is executed at a location and it is not announced, which this was, then the person being raided is in serious legal trouble, and attorney-client privilege will not help him.
Joey Jackson, another CNN legal analyst and criminal defense attorney, further explained that attorney-client privilege if predicated upon fraud doesn’t apply. This is called the crime-fraud exception. Thus, any and all communication about destroying possible evidence, perjury, or "hiding or concealing assets" is not protected. They are in it together.
Therefore, Trump may have cause to be angry and rattled given the US Attorney will now be looking at the conversations he had with Cohen.
His words
The President spoke publicly about his feelings about Cohen’s situation saying this is "an attack on our own country" and what we all stand for calling the raid a" witch hunt" and "disgraceful." He went on to accuse Robert Mueller and his team of being biased and expressed his dismay at Jeff Sessions, the Attorney General, for not staying on the Russia probe.
But to be clear, Thursday (Apr. 5) while on Air Force 1, the President, for the first time, spoke about Stormy. Trump told the press that he did not know about the "$130,000 payment" and that people should ask his "attorney Michael Cohen." Perhaps the raids were one way to ask?
