Trump Is Doomed As The Main Exemption On Attorney/Client Privilege is “Crime Fraud”

In the wake of the news that President Trump’s personal attorney’s office and hotel room were raided by the FBI, one of the questions has been about the seizure of the communication between the President and his attorney Michael Cohen. Normally, this material would be off limits or at the very least exceptionally problematic given attorney client privilege.

Supreme Court lawyer and former Acting Solicitor General of the United States Neal Katyal explained that precisely because it is hard for prosecutors to search attorney’s offices, attorney client privileges require supervisor approvals. The main exception is “crime fraud”, which he explains is when an attorney helps a client commit a crime.

So it is possible that Michael Cohen assisted his client, President Donald Trump, in the commission of a crime.

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The raid itself suggests that Special Counsel Robert Mueller uncovered evidence of a possible crime and then passed that on to Manhattan federal prosecutors. The FBI seized emails, including communications between Trump and Cohen, for a reason.

Sarah Jones

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