Well, it hasn’t been a complete bust for Trump fixer personal attorney, Michael Cohen today.
Cohen and his attorney were in a federal court in Manhattan today pushing several points.
One of those was that his legal team wanted to see the material seized by agents last week, when the FBI raided Cohen’s home and office.
Judge Kimba Wood, a judge in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, ruled that the government must allow Cohen’s legal team to review materials that the FBI seized from his office, home and hotel room last week. Wood ruled that Cohen’s legal team will see the materials before the federal prosecutors investigating Cohen are allowed access to them, according to multiple reports.
Well, that’s got to be a small relief. Other requests from Cohen and his team, however, didn’t have the outcome they’d hoped.
But she denied an attempt by Cohen and Trump to block prosecutors from reviewing the materials, and she did not make a final decision on whether she will appoint a neutral third party known as a “special master” to sift out privileged materials, as Cohen had sought.
Wood, in denying that particular request, noted the “impeachable integrity” of the Southern District U.S. Attorney’s office.
President Trump’s request to block the materials from being viewed was rejected, outright.
In an extraordinary move that pitted Trump against his own Department of Justice, a lawyer for the president filed an emergency motion Sunday night saying that he also objected to the “extraordinary measure.”
The Justice Department pushed back on the claims, arguing that Trump’s request to review the seized materials “erect an unprecedented and unwarranted obstacle to the government’s ability to investigate attorneys for their own conduct, in this case or any other.”
According to the government’s filing, Cohen is under investigation for “criminal conduct that largely centers on his personal business dealings” — reportedly bank fraud and violations of campaign finance law. A $130,000 payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels is believed to be among the things the U.S. Attorney’s office is investigating.
Cohen’s troubles may very well become Trump’s troubles, considering Cohen was in the habit of recording conversations, and recent reports are that investigators have those recordings.
Let’s face it – Something has the president sweating.
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