Feds Raid Office of Trump Lawyer
#161435
04/09/2018 11:12 AM
04/09/2018 11:12 AM
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This is not just big news, this is historic. The very big news of the day: FBI agents raided the law office of Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump's lawyer who was involved in payment of $130,000 to adult performer "Stormy Daniels" for a nondisclosure agreement. Some reports suggest they also raided his home. Recently I've been listening to the podcast "Slow Burn," about Watergate. There's a fascinating theme throughout it: when you're living a historical event, how do you know? How can you tell when a development is a big deal? This is a big deal. It's very early on, but here's some things we can already tell. 1. According to Cohen's own lawyer, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York (widely regarded within itself as being the most important and prestigious U.S. Attorney's Office in the country) secured the search warrants for the FBI, based on a referral from Robert Mueller's office. Assuming this report is correct, that means that a very mainstream U.S. Attorney's Office—not just Special Counsel Robert Mueller's office—thought that there was enough for a search warrant here. 2. Moreover, it's not just that the office thought that there was enough for a search warrant. They thought there was enough for a search warrant of an attorney's office for that attorney's client communications. That's a very fraught and extraordinary move that requires multiple levels of authorization within the Department of Justice. The U.S. Attorney's Manual (USAM)—at Section 9-13.320—contains the relevant policies and procedures. The highlights: The feds are only supposed to raid a law firm if less intrusive measures won't work. As the USAM puts it: In order to avoid impinging on valid attorney-client relationships, prosecutors are expected to take the least intrusive approach consistent with vigorous and effective law enforcement when evidence is sought from an attorney actively engaged in the practice of law. Consideration should be given to obtaining information from other sources or through the use of a subpoena, unless such efforts could compromise the criminal investigation or prosecution, or could result in the obstruction or destruction of evidence, or would otherwise be ineffective. The USAM requires such a search warrant to be approved by the U.S. Attorney—the head of the office, a presidential appointee—and requires "consultation" with the Criminal Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. This is not a couple of rogue AUSAs sneaking in a warrant. Such a search requires an elaborate review process. The basic rule is that the government may not deliberately seize, or review, attorney-client communications. The USAM—and relevant caselaw—therefore require the feds to set up a review process. That process might involve a judge reviewing the materials to separate out what is privileged (or what might fall within an exception to the privilege), or else set up a "dirty team" that does the review but is insulated from the "clean team" running the investigation. Another option is a "special master," an experienced and qualified third-party attorney to do the review. Sometimes the reviewing team will only be identifying and protecting privileged material. Sometimes the reviewing team will be preparing to seek, or to implement, a court ruling that the documents are not privileged. (Robert Mueller is aggressive on this sort of thing; he already sought and obtained a court ruling that some of Paul Manafort's communications with his lawyers were not privileged because they were undertaken for the purpose of fraud—the so-called "crime-fraud exception" to the attorney-client privilege. 3. A magistrate judge signed off on this. Federal magistrate judges (appointed by local district judges, not by the president) review search warrant applications. A magistrate judge therefore reviewed this application and found probable cause—that is, probable cause to believe that the subject premises (Cohen's office) contains specified evidence of a specified federal crime. Now, magistrate judges sometimes are a little too rubber-stampy for my taste (notably, recall the time that a magistrate judge signed off on a truly ludicrous gag order forbidding Reason from revealing that it had been served with a subpoena for information identifying commenters). But here, where the magistrate judge knew that this would become one of the most scrutinized search warrant applications ever, and because the nature of the warrant of an attorney's office is unusual, you can expect that the magistrate judge felt pretty confident that there was enough there. 4. The search warrant application (the lengthy narrative from the FBI agent setting for the evidence) is almost certainly still under seal, and even Michael Cohen doesn't get to see it (yet). But the FBI would have left the warrant itself—and that shows (1) the federal criminal statutes they were investigating, and (2) the list of items they wanted to seize. Much can be learned for those. Assuming Michael Cohen doesn't release it, watch for it to be leaked. Again: this is a big deal. It's early times. Watch for the search warrant itself—that will show us what crimes they are investigating and what documents they think are probative of that crime. Watch also for what Michael Cohen's lawyers do in the struggle to compel arbitration with Stormy Daniels in a federal court in Los Angeles—the search warrant dramatically complicates whether Cohen can, or should, submit to any questions in that case. Be skeptical of the surge of misinformation and inaccurate legal takes that are certain to drop. But watch. This is historic. Onward and upward, airforce
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Re: Feds Raid Office of Trump Lawyer
#161436
04/10/2018 03:48 AM
04/10/2018 03:48 AM
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Joined: Oct 2012
Posts: 381
San Antonio, TX
Mexneck
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The missing Trump Clinton Daniels romp tape? I'll pass on watching that.
Well, this is it.
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Re: Feds Raid Office of Trump Lawyer
#161437
04/10/2018 05:03 AM
04/10/2018 05:03 AM
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Originally posted by Mexneck:
The missing Trump Clinton Daniels romp tape? I'll pass on watching that. Yeah, I'll take a pass as well!  Onward and upward, airforce
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Re: Feds Raid Office of Trump Lawyer
#161438
04/10/2018 06:41 AM
04/10/2018 06:41 AM
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Joined: Dec 2009
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South-central Colorado
Ducttape
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The hypocrisy is just absolutely astounding in that there was REAL CRIMINAL ACTS committed by the Clinton's and Obama, yet nothing like this ever took place, and yet the frigging LEFT is saying that good honest people from both sides of the isle worked together to see that justice was done to Trump. I really despise what this country has turned into and look forward to the day when the LEFT reap what they have sown . https://youtu.be/vrykLWzoMYk FBI Raids Office Of Trump Attorney Michael Cohen | The View
My Daddy is like duct tape, he can fix almost anything.
A quote from my youngest daughter at 4yrs old, many years ago.
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Re: Feds Raid Office of Trump Lawyer
#161439
04/10/2018 04:58 PM
04/10/2018 04:58 PM
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Joined: Oct 2001
Posts: 19,732
A 059 Btn 16 FF MSC
ConSigCor
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Rand Paul Warns: Mueller’s ‘Enormous Power Can Be Used Against Anybody’
FBI raiding Trump lawyer’s office massive abuse of power, he says
Jamie White | Infowars.com - April 10, 2018
Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) sounded the alarm against the FBI raid conducted on President Trump’s personal lawyer Michael Cohen, saying all Americans are exposed to Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s abuse of power.
“Going after someone’s personal attorney is a great overstep, I think, in the authority of the prosecutor,” Paul said Tuesday on FOX. “And, this is why I have opposed, really, having special prosecutors for almost anything, because I think they abuse their authority. So I think Mueller has abused his authority.”
WATCH: @BillHemmer @RandPaul on yesterday's FBI raids of @POTUS's personal attorney Michael Cohen's apartment, home, and office pic.twitter.com/BlCvIgfhWK
— America's Newsroom (@AmericaNewsroom) April 10, 2018
The Kentucky senator warned Trump critics who excuse Mueller’s abuse of power should rethink their convictions, because they aren’t immune to that abuse of power either.
“I would warn people around America who don’t like the president who say, ‘Oh, this is just fine because it’s against President Trump’: This is an enormous power that can be used against anybody,” he said.
“This is about enormous power, prosecutorial power, but also power in the intelligence communities. We have to rein this in, or every American citizen is exposed to this kind of abuse of power.”
“Remember what Chuck Schumer said a couple of months ago? He says, ‘If you cross the intelligence agencies, they can screw you six ways to Sunday,'” he added.
Trump is correct in characterizing Mueller’s investigation as a “witch hunt” based on his far-reaching subpoenas and indictments that aren’t related to Russian collusion, said Paul.
A TOTAL WITCH HUNT!!!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 10, 2018
“Really this is a wide-open — the president’s right: it’s a witch hunt — but it’s a wide-open thing; it’s a mistake to ever have these special prosecutors,” Paul concluded.
The FBI raided Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen’s office in Rockefeller Center on Monday, seizing personal and financial documents in the hopes of collecting evidence of “bank and wire fraud.”
"The time for war has not yet come, but it will come and that soon, and when it does come, my advice is to draw the sword and throw away the scabbard." Gen. T.J. Jackson, March 1861
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Re: Feds Raid Office of Trump Lawyer
#161440
04/10/2018 05:00 PM
04/10/2018 05:00 PM
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Joined: Oct 2001
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ConSigCor
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Dershowitz: Targeting Trump's lawyer should worry us all
By Alan M. Dershowitz,
There is much speculation as to the significance of the search of the offices and hotel room of President Trump’s lawyer, Michael Cohen. To obtain a search warrant, prosecutors must demonstrate to a judge that they have probable cause to believe that the premises to be searched contain evidence of crime. They must also specify the area to be searched, the items to be seized and, in searches of computers, the word searches to be used.
At least that’s the constitutional requirement in theory, especially where the Sixth Amendment right to counsel is involved, in addition to the general Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable searches. Yet, in practice, judges often give the FBI considerable latitude, relying on the “firewalls” and “taint teams” they set up to protect the subject of the search from violation of his or her constitutional rights.
But the firewalls and taint teams are comprised of government agents who themselves may not be entitled to read or review many of the items seized. It is an imperfect protection of important constitutional rights. That’s why Justice Department officials must be careful to limit the searching of lawyers’ offices to compelling cases involving serious crimes. We don’t know at this point what the prosecutors are looking for but, if it relates to payments made to porn star Stormy Daniels, that would not seem to justify so potentially intrusive a search of Cohen’s confidential lawyer-client files.
There are, of course, exceptions to the lawyer-client privilege. First, the lawyer must be acting as a lawyer, not as a friend or business associate. But the scope of a lawyer’s work is quite broad, encompassing much more than merely giving legal advice. It includes settling cases by making payments to potential litigants. Second, the lawyer must be engaged in lawful activities on behalf of the clients. Illegal or fraudulent activities are not covered by the privilege. Nor are communications with third persons, such as the lawyer for the other side, though such communications may be covered by the much weaker “settlement privilege.”
Civil libertarians should be concerned whenever the government interferes with the lawyer-client relationship. Clients should be able to rely on confidentiality when they disclose their most intimate secrets in an effort to secure their legal rights. A highly publicized raid on the president’s lawyer will surely shake the confidence of many clients in promises of confidentiality by their lawyers. They will not necessarily understand the nuances of the confidentiality rules and their exceptions. They will see a lawyer’s office being raided and all his files seized.
I believe we would have been hearing more from civil libertarians — the American Civil Liberties Union, attorney groups and privacy advocates — if the raid had been on Hillary Clinton’s lawyer. Many civil libertarians have remained silent about potential violations of President Trump’s rights because they strongly disapprove of him and his policies. That is a serious mistake, because these violations establish precedents that lie around like loaded guns capable of being aimed at other targets.
I have been widely attacked for defending the constitutional rights of a president I voted against. In our hyperpartisan age, everyone is expected to choose a side, either for or against Trump. But the essence of civil liberties is that they must be equally applicable to all. The silence among most civil libertarians regarding the recent raid shows that we are losing that valuable neutrality.
What else does the raid tell us? It seems likely that special counsel Robert Mueller is bifurcating the investigation: He will keep control over matters relating to Russia, the campaign and any possible obstruction. But he has handed over to the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York any matters relating to Trump’s personal and business affairs. Mueller will work hand in hand with the New York prosecutors, but they will be in charge of the other matters. If they manage to find prosecutable evidence against Trump’s lawyer, they may try to squeeze him into cooperating against his client.
It is doubtful that Cohen would cooperate, even if he has anything on his client. But prosecutors often try to get lawyers to “sing” against their clients — to become “canaries” — in order to save their own feathers. Some flipped witnesses will tell prosecutors anything they want to hear in order to earn a “get out of jail free card.” They know that the “better” their story, the more leniency they will earn. So, in addition to singing, they “compose” by making up incriminating details.
I have seen this on many occasions. Mueller has already apparently flipped several witnesses, but Cohen would be his biggest catch in the unlikely event he could be induced to turn against his client. So, stay tuned to this unfolding drama, but remember that prosecutorial tactics used today against President Trump may tomorrow be used against Democrats — and even against you.
"The time for war has not yet come, but it will come and that soon, and when it does come, my advice is to draw the sword and throw away the scabbard." Gen. T.J. Jackson, March 1861
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