Feds: Trump, Hannity Remarks Suggest Cohen Doesn't Have Many Privileged Docs
Source: Talking Points Memo
By Caitlin MacNeal | April 26, 2018 11:03 am
Federal prosecutors argued in a Thursday morning letter that documents seized in an FBI raid on Michael Cohens home, office and hotel room are unlikely to contain a large percentage of material subject to attorney-client privilege because two of Cohens three clients have downplayed the legal work Cohen carried out for them.
Prosecutors noted that since Cohen revealed that one of his three clients was Sean Hannity, the Fox News host has since said that Cohen has never represented him in a legal matter. Attorneys for the government also cited an interview President Donald Trump, another Cohen client, gave on Fox and Friends just a couple hours before the letter was produced in which the President claimed that Cohen only managed a tiny, tiny little fraction of his legal work.
These statements by two of Cohens three identified clients suggest that the seized materials are unlikely to contain voluminous privileged documents, further supporting the importance of efficiency here, prosecutors wrote in the letter.
The argument came in a footnote on a letter notifying the judge in the case that the prosecution now supports the appointment of a third party special master to review the seized materials for potential privileged documents.
Read more: https://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/prosecutors-trump-hannity-statements-cohen-privileged-materials
WhiteTara
(29,732 posts)Cohen will flip like a pancake.
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)Looking literally at Cohen's and Trump's statements in that regard, there is not an inherent contradiction.
Trump and the Trump organization do indeed have a very large volume of legal work. Fundamentally, that's what the real estate and licensing business is - dealing with contracts, leases, sales, etc.. For Trump to assert that Cohen has a "tiny fraction" of Trump's legal work is not a statement that Trump's business is a "tiny fraction" of Cohen's legal work.
To put it another way, one person on an auto assembly line does a "tiny fraction" of the assembly work of the plant, but it keeps that person busy 40 hours a week.
It was a dumb statement to make, but it does not inherently contradict Cohen's claim.
Cohen's claim is likely false anyway, but this statement is not the silver bullet it's made out to be - as if Trump said "my work is a tiny fraction of Cohen's legal work". It is certainly amusing, though.
thesquanderer
(12,000 posts)LanternWaste
(37,748 posts)"but it does not inherently contradict Cohen's claim..."
Which is why we are presented with the implicit qualifier "suggests," rather than "prove."
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)...regardless of what Trump or Hannity's out of court statements might suggest.
Hannity, for example, is certainly under no obligation to be truthful about the extent or lack thereof, of Cohen's legal work (if any) for him, in tweets, his radio show, or on the TV machine.
At the end of the day, any of the communications are either privileged or not privileged, and the court has appointed a special master to sort that out.
Still, it's a chuckle.
There are, of course, competing OMG's about the special master, in keeping with the general opinion that judges or court-appointed officers tend to base their professional duties on pure id. There is the "OMG, she was a partner in Bracewell, which used to be Bracewell & Giuliani!!!" on the proposition that every lawyer in a 400 member firm has some sort of undying fealty to a former name partner. Then there is the competing "OMG, Clinton nominated her to the bench!!!!" thing, as if, again, there is some eternal loyalty due as a result of that. Honestly, I continue to be surprised by the prevalence of the belief that everyone in the legal profession operates on Trump's level.
Finally, I think it is important to bear in mind that this was an extraordinary warrant, requiring a high level of probable cause, and requiring specificity as to the redacted offense for which evidence was believed to exist. That evidence is either going to be in what was collected or not, and is, by definition, not going to be privileged.
What will be interesting to see is whether Cohen's work "running his business" had a pattern of meshing well with Trump "running his business".
FakeNoose
(32,884 posts)It might be a small portion of the total legal work, because the Trump Organization employs a shit-ton of lawyers. But Cohen handled all the stuff the other lawyers won't touch, like a "fixer" would do. All the NDA's, payoffs, threats, etc. He knows where the bodies are buried.
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)But if he was doing that job correctly, then he should not have been generating a lot of client correspondence.