Feds conducted 'covert' surveillance on Trump lawyer Michael Cohen email accounts, feared he'd

[Bernardo de La Paz]

Source: CNBC

Feds conducted 'covert' surveillance on Trump lawyer Michael Cohen email accounts, feared he'd delete records

...

The filing also offered new information about the "months-long investigation into Cohen" that led to the aggressive searches Monday morning.

...

But the prosecutors say they have already conducted searches of Cohen's email accounts, "covert until this point," which they say "indicate that Cohen is in fact performing little to no legal work, and that zero emails were exchanged with President Trump."

This line of attack extends to a law firm from which Cohen received a $500,000 "strategic alliance fee" each year. "Based upon conversations with a representative of the law firm," the attorneys said they found that:

" ( 1 ) Cohen did not have an email address associated with the firm; (2) Cohen did not have access to the firm's shared drives or document systems—and vice versa; (3) Cohen's documents were to be kept in a locked filing cabinet; and (4) Cohen did not have access to any of the firm's client files."

...

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/13/prosecutors-slam-trump-lawyer-cohens-hearing-request-in-fbi-raids.html

Cohen is in fact performing little to no legal work,

Thus no Attorney-Client Privilege applies.

[Kirk Lover]

1. Oh yes this will be another nugget to fully explore...gonna be lots to talk about on this

front next week!!! Sorry RUMPie but it's never going away...you damn right it's a cloud muthafucka so enjoy a day here and there of some clearing. But the storm is a looming.

[C_U_L8R]

2. I bet he did delete records

That alone might be enough to put him away... oh and the lying to congress thing

[hughee99]

3. I think I misread this. It sounds like theyve been reading his email

For months now, but I don’t think that could be the case.

[Nevernose]

6. Covert for months

It certainly sounds like it.

Does that require the Feds get a different search warrant? Or kind of search warrant? Or can they just monitor the servers holding/passing the emails, since those technically belong to someone else?

[hughee99]

7. I would have to imagine that before they could start reading a lawyers emails, some of which

may be privileged, they'd need more than a regular search warrant to do that. If they can just monitor the servers and read whatever is there, then there's no such thing as a privileged or classified email.

[Nevernose]

8. We might not have heard about

A FISA warrant, for example.

I learned many years ago that there is no such thing as privacy or privilege. The government and corporate America either already know or can know everything about us at any given moment. They can also justify whatever they want to do and get away with it.

We live in a shared illusion.

[hughee99]

9. While you're right from a practical standpoint, from a legal standpoint, privacy and privilege still

exist. Let me just say this, if someone got a FISA warrant to look at all (including privileged) communications from Trump's personal lawyer, there's an enormous shit-storm that's going to come down on people from both sides of this investigation. For those people who have been talking about "the swamp" for the last few years, this will confirm to them, in their mind, that all of it is true.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

11. The Feds need a warrant, but rogue third parties can read emails by hacking in transit.

An email is essentially more like a postcard than a sealed letter.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

10. Covert search warrants require fulfilling extra conditions for them to be approved by Judge.

Yes, they can monitor other servers or intermediate servers to accomplish it.

[hughee99]

13. Since the story is about the FEDS conducting

Surveillance, that’s the part that matters here. If they had a 3rd party intercepting content for them (and I don’t think they did) to avoid getting a warrant, they’re going to have legal issues using any of this information.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

14. Yes, Mueller & his team are dotting-i-s & crossing-t-s types. I'm sure it's been done scrupulously.

[mitch96]

4. "$500,000 "strategic alliance fee" "

What the hell is a strategic alliance fee? Just for being a nice guy or just a way for tRump to pay him thru another account. I wonder if tRump is a client of said law firm.. or one of tRumps cronies...
m

[unitedwethrive]

12. Now they need to 'follow the money' and figure out where this fund came from.

[Wellstone ruled]

5. Did Preet start this ball rolling?

So this Grand Jury was impaneled quite some time ago. It this why Donnie of Stupid fired Preet? Just thinking of the time frame. Did Rudy tip off Donnie as to the Grand Jury?

Something says,there is one major story laying out there. Patton-Boggs is so connected with the Russian Oligarchs that the real bomb shell has not been investigated.