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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsProsecutors Reveal New Details About MONTHS-LONG Probe Of Michael Cohen
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Federal prosectors in New York revealed on Friday that President Trumps longtime fixer and personal attorney Michael Cohen has been under grand jury investigation for months for alleged criminal conduct that largely centers on his personal business dealings, and that as part of the investigation they had obtained previously covert search warrants for multiple Cohen email accounts.
The revelations were made in a court filing made public after a hearing Friday morning during which Cohens attorneys sought to prevent prosecutors from having access to documents seized in Monday raids on Cohens home, office and hotel room. Cohens attorneys are arguing that that either they or an independent third party should be allowed to sort out the records that fall under attorney-client privilege. Standard DOJ practice is that a team known as a Filter Team of DOJ lawyers separate from the prosecutors investigating the case undertake the review to screen out those documents.
Prosectors, in arguing that they should be allowed to follow the standard DOJ procedure for the records seized Monday, revealed that the raids were part of a a months-long investigation into Cohen, that they sought evidence of crimes, many of which have nothing to do with his work as an attorney, but rather relate to Cohens own business dealings.
Prosecutors expressed extreme skepticism that Cohen has an extensive client list which was affected by the raid.
Based on information gathered in the investigation to date, the USAO-SDNY and FBI have reason to believe that Cohen has exceedingly few clients and a low volume of potentially privileged communications, prosecutors said in the Friday court filing.
The filing pulled no punches in attacking the arguments made by Cohens attorneys that they should have a chance to review the seized records before the prosecutors do.
Prosectors said that at least one witness has told investigators that Cohen has said that Trump was his sole client. They also rebutted Cohens claim that he had an privileged relationship with a law firm called in the filing Law Firm 1.
In its reference to the warrants already obtained for Cohens email accounts which are seperate from those used to execute Mondays raids prosecutors said that those emails had already been sorted out by a Filter Team.
The results of that review, as reported by the USAOs Filter Team, indicate that Cohen is in fact performing little to no legal work, and that zero emails were exchanged with President Trump, the filing said.
In a footnote, prosectors even cited Trumps own words to suggest that Cohens communications about Stormy Daniels an ex-porn star who Cohen paid off to keep her quiet about an alleged one-night stand with Trump should not be treated as privileged.
Prosectors also brought up a claim the Trump Organization has made to them after the raids that each and every communication by, between or amongst Mr. Cohen and the Trump Organization and each of its officers, directors and employees, to be subject to and protected by the attorney- client privilege and/or the work-product privilege.
In the face of inaccurate and/or overbroad claims of privilege, the USAO-SDNY would be seriously prejudiced if it were not able, through a Filter Team, to evaluate the validity of such claims, the prosectors said.
The filing discusses why prosecutors sought to use a search warrant to obtain the records the FBI seized on Monday, rather than a less intrusive subpoena or voluntary request for the documents. Much of that section is redacted, but at one point the filing argued that the nature of the offenseswhich sound in fraud and evidence a lack of truthfulnessweighed heavily in favor of the USAO-SDNYs decision to execute search warrants.
MORE!
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/cohen-under-criminal-investigation
berni_mccoy
(23,018 posts)LOCK HIM UP!
lindysalsagal
(20,692 posts)and that he's got enough on 45 to make all of this abberant behavior stop.
BSdetect
(8,998 posts)Let us hope drumphus ios dealt with promptly like any wartime traitor. We are at cyberwar right now.
Volaris
(10,271 posts)theyve specifically cut this cloth as to leave out ANYTHING that moves away from COHEN. Now Cohens ass is in a sling all by himself for his and ONLY his crimes, and the only way for him to get a deal cut is co-operate fully with whatever the SDNY team offers him (for which there can BE no pardon). He can offer non-priviliged information on 'bigger fish', which can then be kicked over to Team Mueller to verify through secondary sources.
Cohen is going to do everything he can to keep his own ass out of jail.
That probably means that Donald Trump will die in prison.
The endgame has now begun.
Wounded Bear
(58,662 posts)what else is new?
Bunch of crooks, all of them.
NewJeffCT
(56,828 posts)Cohen is going to go all out to protect Trump and Trump will pardon him.