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FBI Raids Trump Lawyer’s Office
The FBI has raided the office of President Trump’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen. 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.”
Mr. Cohen plays a role in aspects of the special counsel’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. He also recently said he paid $130,000 to a pornographic-film actress, Stephanie Clifford, who said she had an affair with Mr. Trump. Ms. Clifford is known as Stormy Daniels.
This investigation has gone from “Trump colluded with Putin to steal American democracy” to “Trump diddled a porn star” in about a year. Hopefully Mueller will wrap up this investigation soon.
What do you think, Ricochetti? Is this big or blah?
Published in General
This seems like about the right place to weigh in to provide some legal info 101. Spoiler alert: privilege is not the same as confidentiality. Second spoiler alert: privilege is extremely deep when it applies, but it is also extremely narrow. (Translation from legal English to regular English: most of what people think is protected by the attorney-client privilege is not protected by the ACP.) Third spoiler alert: ACP is a rule of evidence, not a rule of ethics, and it applies only inside a court or court-related proceeding. That means that it makes all the difference in the world who is the target.
If Lawyer Cohen is the target, absolutely everything that was taken can be introduced against him in court, without any ACP bar. (Steps would have to be taken to seal communications that are protected by some other person’s privilege, but Cohen could not stop the introduction of that evidence against himself.)
Returning to @hypatia: Dersh first corrected Hannity and made the point I had made earlier that this shows that Mueller is staying within his mandate (and that’s a good thing). Second, @hypatia is correct that Dersh then worried about an attack on the attorney-client relationship (but pointedly–see above spoilers–he did not say that it was an attack on the attorney-client privilege). But note also that this attack is not being launched by Mueller. It is being launched by federal prosecutors in New York (not, @hypatia, New York prosecutors). And they have nothing to turn over to the FBI–the FBI made the raid and turned the materials over to the federal prosecutors–as is done in every federal case.
Where Dersh was shaky: he didn’t take into account the serious possibility that Cohen is the real target, and that he is being targeted as a “regular
federal criminal offender, with Mueller providing only the tip to the other feds, and nothing more.
Dershowitz may be right or wrong on this–I think he’s right–but he insisted to Hannity that Mueller and his team are not partisan, only zealous to the point of overzealousness. (Hello, Andrew Weissmann.)
Compare and contrast the treatment of the lawyers of Hillary Clinton by Comey’s FBI …………….
Clinton lawyer Cherly Mills leaves the tea & crumpets interview once the FBI broaches an off-limits topic (the emails?!!)
Everyone needs to go back the Marquess of Queensberry Rules so we can have a dignified political system. Ronald Reagan and all of that.
So, the solution for Democratic politicians committing crimes with impunity is to let Republicans commit crimes with impunity?
I would prefer that we enforce the law, not ignore it, even when the target is a Republican politician. I recognize that is not the prevailing view on Ricochet, but I refuse to view the law through a blatantly partisan lens.
A blog on Powerline today has it right:
Trump should pardon everyone
charged in every one of Mueller’s cases
wherein the allegations have nothing to do with collusion with Russians during the campaign.
And that would be all of Mueller’s cases.
And I’m still keen for it. Seems to me the issues there are much more serious and much more substantiated. I would not have been so keen, though, that I would have supported manufacturing a campaign finance violation if Hillary had paid Huma to keep their lesbian relationship secret.
It’s our new system. The big problem is crony-istic socialism is impossible to reverse.
This whole saga angers and frightens me. First they had the temerity to launch this operation in the first place – even in the face of public and serious legal infractions of their own! Rather than let it fizzle they amplified and have gone to further depths trampling on our system. This is authoritarian. Not President Trump as people love to project onto him. Everyone keeps worrying about whether President Trump will overstep his bounds, but it seems to me that only one side has ever overstepped – and they keep overstepping – since this whole saga began. This is getting way more serious than pee-pee’ed beds, porn performers, Russia “meddling”. This is getting to our foundational principles like equal application of the law, due process, representative government.
Republican congress, both house and senate, time to step up! You want to protect your seat? Then do your job! Right now; this nonsense saga should be the first and only thing on your lips in all public appearances. Hang it around the dem’s necks like the stone that it is.
Antifa types use BAMN – By Any Means Necessary.
Again, so your proposed solution is to let Republicans commit crimes witn impunity?
I disagree that is the best way forward, but I accept that I will never convince Trump’s most ardent supporters of that notion.
Equal protection under the law. Equal application of teh law. I could be ok, I guess, with the feds attacking on Stormy grounds, but if that’s teh case then they’d better get to a thousand other no knock raids on matters much more serious than this.
I hope you are aware that if Hillary paid Huma out of her pocket, it would not be a campaign finance violation. If Sid Blumenthal paid Huma, it would be.
If Trump paid Ms Daniels out of his own pocket, it would not be a problem at all.
Does anyone know what is actually being investigated here? If not, every word written is speculation and conspiracy theory.
Very few people here are interested in facts. Speculation and conspiracy theories are just more fun. Thank the higher power that Trump defeated the son of JFK’s assassin, imagine how bad the deep state would be with a family of international assassins living in the White House.
A2 that is not the prevailing view on Ricochet. At least, I’ve seen no evidence that it is prevailing. I think Columbo is getting at the issue of equal application of the law and how that is a much bigger problem for our republic than who paid Stormy Daniels how much. The law is already blatantly partisan starting under the Obama administration. I care about that too – which is why I care more about the process and the lies underlying this whole campaign of prosecution than I do about President Trump’s tryst with a porn performer.
That’s what I’m worried about.
People need to get real about what is going on. The whole bureaucracy is pro-statist, no matter what the cost. The media enables it, too.
IMO, this only straightens out when the bond market collapses. It’s very hard to fight it conventionally.
So much for the presumption of innocence.
Or due process. This whole process threw out that principle from teh start. “We know a crime has been committed, we just don’t know what it was – that’s why we need to go fishi….. er I mean investigate.”
This is what it seems to be. They will keep digging and digging to find anything, no matter how minute to get rid of the duly elected president. I don’t know why any freedom loving person would like what is happening. Ok you don’t like Trump, but is this the way to get rid of him? Is this the power you want in the hands of the state? To twist laws to serve their own purpose? This seems to be, in my opinion, the weaponization of the FBI and our law enforcement institution.
I completely disagree, but that comes as no surprise. People here are outraged that the government is enforcing the law against a Republican.
The “What Aboutism” is explicitly an argument that it is ok for Republicans to do it because Democrats do it. I don’t find that argument convincing but I accept that it is convincing to many on here.
LOL
The Democrats ran Hillary.
Look at the ACA. Both politically and non-politically it’s impossible to reverse. Obama and Gruber forced single payer with a bunch of lies.
It would have been Bernie if they didn’t have their Ruling Class schemes in the Democrat party. We’re a banana republic, now. Act accordingly.
If the GOP had a national two step primary 17—>2, Trump wouldn’t have got it. Seventeen was too many and the GOP had no plan.
No it really isn’t. I just explained how it isn’t that. I also just explained how I’m not outraged by enforcement of the law but by selective partisan enforcement of the law especially when the law needs to be enforced on seemingly much more serious crimes.
Dan Bongino: