Trump’s Claim Of Attorney/Client Privilege Blown Up As Cohen Was Doing No Legal Work

Prosecutors say that after looking at Michael Cohen’s emails, he was doing little to zero legal work, which means that claims of attorney/client privilege do not apply.

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NBC News’ Tom Winter reported:

We obviously know about the search warrant that occurred last week. You know, this was kind of missed in a filing by prosecutors. This was filed late in the day on Friday or at least became public late in the day on Friday. The U.S. Attorney’s office for the southern district of New York has already obtained search warrants, covert until this point, on multiple different e-mail accounts maintained by Cohen. They said they were able to get results of that review as reported by the filter team which is what we’ve been talking about for last several days.

They were able to understand from those searches that Cohen was, in fact, and I’m quoting directly, performing little to no legal work and zero e-mails were exchanged with president trump. What that tell us is the U.S. Attorney’s office and federal investigators have already had a chance to get into Michael Cohen’s e-mails outside of this whole court action. This kind of plays out and a judge determines about the material that was seized from Cohen’s apartment, from the law office. The computer, the hard drives, et cetera. The legal kind of back and forth occurs with that, Craig. We know they’ve been able to get a handle on e-mail accounts. Presumably at this point they’re able to move forward with that component of the investigation so they can get a sense as to what he was communicating with people about, was there any illegality there, and even if that material is somehow — somehow there’s a pause as far as them sharing it more back and forth within the U.S. Attorney’s office between these two teams, the investigative and potentially trial team, they still know the contents of what they have already. This is not an investigation that has completely slammed on the brakes. What’s next they have some investigator steps they can already take in their avenues that they may already be able to pursue, even while they wait for the outcome of what’s been going on in court and what we’re talking about yesterday.

Hannity and Trump can’t use attorney/client privilege

Prosecutors have evidence that Michael Cohen wasn’t acting as an attorney, so the communications aren’t privileged, and Cohen is not a member of the administration, so executive privilege does not apply, which means that any communications that have been captured between Cohen and Trump are admissible. Trump and Cohen are trying to tie this matter up in court for as long as possible because even though Trump doesn’t use email, there are likely written notes and documents along with potential phone calls obtained in the wiretap of Cohen that could be extremely damaging.

Trump is trying to keep some secrets hidden, and the bad news for him is that he won’t be able to hide behind attorney/client privilege.

Jason Easley

Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.

Awards and  Professional Memberships

Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association