“I am unhappy to have my personal residence and office raided”, Cohen told CNN in a phone call, the network reported.
Advertisement
Michael Cohen had his Manhattan hotel room and office raided by Federal Bureau of Investigation agents Monday.
The raid made the effort more hard because of Trump’s anger over the raids, all three officials said. Trump has denied it. Daniels told her story in 2011 to In Touch magazine, but several of those who worked at the publication have said they withheld the story after Cohen threatened to sue.
From there, Cohen became a fixture in the president’s organization.
Trump and his legal team said that the president is “less inclined” to meet with Mueller’s team of investigators, ABC News reported.
Donald Trump has blasted the investigation led by special counsel Robert Mueller as a “disgrace” and a “witch-hunt” after FBI agents raided the NY offices of the president’s long time personal lawyer Michael Cohen. But experts agree this latest development should concern Cohen.
“Just because something isn’t true doesn’t mean that it can’t cause you harm or damage”, Cohen said earlier this year after the payment to Daniels came to national attention.
More: Who is Michael Cohen?
Five people familiar with the president’s views say the raid of attorney Michael Cohen’s records left the president more angry than advisers had seen him in weeks. “They may have a goal of flipping him, but there’s also evidence of a crime here”.
“It’s only speculation at this point, but it’s quite likely that Cohen was the keeper of many of Trump’s lending documents, contracts, business arrangements, and the Kryptonite of Trump’s fragile self-worth: the long-sought tax returns”. That could trigger what is called the “crime-fraud exception” to the attorney-client privilege. “It can not be discovered”, he said.
As it happens, attorney-client privilege isn’t dead.
Even then, prosecutors have to be extraordinarily careful about what communications remain privileged.
“DOJ goes through specific steps using a walled-off group of prosecutors to conduct an initial review so that the prosecutors handling the case are not “infected” by seeing attorney-client privileged materials”, he said. Renato Mariotti, a former federal prosecutor in IL, elucidated the difficulty of differentiating between the two.
This included, among other things, the fact that Trump and Cohen may have broken the law, that attorney-client privilege does not apply to the situation, and that the raid was cleared by both the Justice Department and a judge. Next, a “taint team” will have to determine what communications between the president and his attorney might fall into this category. “They would have drafted the warrant, supervised the agent affidavit, presented it to the judge, and supervised the execution of it”, McQuade said.
Trump also wouldn’t rule out firing special counsel Robert Mueller, who made a referral to federal prosecutors in NY after uncovering information that was evidently concerning enough for the FBI to raid Cohen. The exact reason for the raid was unclear, but reports Monday indicated that the matter was referred to the FBI by Robert Mueller, the special counsel leading the Russian Federation investigation. “They found no collusion whatsoever with Russia”. He added that federal agents “are only supposed to raid a law firm if less intrusive measures won’t work”. Trump could fire Mueller at any moment, a possibility that the current administration has certainly considered. “To criticize Mueller misses the mark”, Wisenberg continued.
He is also known as a rough-and-tumble “fixer” for Mr Trump, dedicated to protecting his boss’s interests. “I’d like to meet him, ‘” said Dr. Morton Levine, Cohen’s uncle.
The special counsel regulations take the power to fire the special counsel out of the president’s hands and give it to the attorney general.
It’s “guesswork and inference” how these warrants relate to Mueller’s investigation, Sandick said. If federal prosecutors feel they have enough on you to execute a search warrant, it’s never a good sign – just ask Paul Manafort. But don’t expect new indictments too soon.
Advertisement
Asked if he was anxious, Cohen told CNN: “I would be lying to you if I told that I am not”. “Nixon didn’t resign because of the Ellsberg Papers, but that led to the Watergate break-in, that led to the cover-up, and Nixon’s resignation was tied directly to the cover-up”. Do I want to be involved in this?
