On Monday, FBI agents conducted raids on the offices and home of Donald Trump’s personal attorney, Michael Cohen. The raids were based on a referral by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, a warrant issued by US Attorney Geoffrey Berman, and carried out by the New York office of the FBI. It’s not exactly clear what “referral” means in this case. It could mean that the subject of the raid was criminal activity that Mueller came across during his investigation, but which he deemed to be outside of the range of items that fall under the authority given to his team by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. Or Mueller might asked Berman and the NYC team to step in to both validate his concerns and act quickly. In any case, several points are clear.
- The DOJ, FBI, or prosecutors at any level rarely conduct searches of attorney offices out of an abundance of caution over attorney-client privilege. Violation of that privilege puts an investigation at risk for losing vital evidence, and could potentially remove whole swaths of subsequent discoveries from the table. When law enforcement does feel it necessary to move on an attorney, it’s generally because there’s strong evidence that the attorney is not just aware of, but involved in, criminal activity. The way in which the FBI conducted this raid—which was similar to the raid of Paul Manafort’s residence early in the investigation—suggests that Mueller was looking for information related to a specific crime and had a concern that, given time, Cohen might dispose of that information.
- No matter what sense of “referral” was involved in this instance, running the operation through Berman was clearly meant to remove any reasonable charge of bias. Berman is not just a Republican, and not just a Trump-appointee. He was hand selected by Donald Trump after a tradition-breaking face-to-face meeting that raised concerns about Berman being put in place specifically to shield Trump from action in New York. Whatever Robert Mueller had, it was so compelling that the man Trump put in place as his firewall, did not hesitate to draw up a warrant and take action.
- Donald Trump reaction to the raid showed his usual anger about the entire existence of the investigation, but ratcheted up to a very high degree. Taking time away from a meeting with the military to plan a response to the chemical weapon attack in Syria, Trump drew a parallel to that event, calling the raid on Cohen’s office “An attack on our nation.” Trump also made numerous statements showing that the firing of Mueller, Rosenstein, and Attorney General Jeff Sessions was definitely under consideration.
Fifty years from now, this week will be the subject of some … Movie? Hologram? Direct mind meld experience? Starring the Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks of that generation. Or they will be something whispered about at the gulag. But no matter the eventual outcome, there’s no doubt we are living through the not-a-Chinese-curse of “interesting times.”
Trump’s boiling anger was evident in his brief appearance before the cameras. He followed up on Tuesday morning.
But aside from this and another tweet repeating his frequent charge that the investigation is a “TOTAL WITCH HUNT,” Trump appears to have taken no overnight action.
Despite Trump’s claims, it appears that the FBI team is handling the material from Cohen’s office with appropriate care. Several sources have suggested that the investigation has formed a “taint team,” looking through the material gathered to see which documents fall under the protection of privilege, and which are exposed to more normal treatment either because they were discussed with someone other than Trump or one of his attorneys, or they are directly pertinent to charges of obstructing, diverting, or otherwise interfering with the legal process.
In his statements on Monday evening, Trump acted as if the raid was itself a crime.
“So I just heard that they broke into the office of one of my personal attorneys, a good man and it's a disgraceful situation. It's a total witch-hunt. I've been saying it for a long time.”
However, it’s clear that the team at each location had a search warrant and followed strict legal procedures. It’s not even certain that there was any “breaking” at all. It appears that the team knocked on doors, presented their warrant, and entered.
Though several reports have said that the client files for Donald Trump were at least among the documents gathered in the raid, there are a number of possible charges against Cohen.
Michael Cohen, the longtime attorney of President Trump, is under federal investigation for possible bank fraud, wire fraud and campaign finance violations, according to three people with knowledge of the case.
These charges would seem to be connected to the Stormy Daniels payment. However, actions such as those taken on Monday are more dramatic than typical for a matter like possible FEC violations. Whatever the charges, it was treated as a criminal investigation.
In his statements on Monday, Trump dismissed the investigation team as prejudiced against him.
“This is the most biased group of people, these people have the biggest conflicts of interest I've ever seen. Democrats all -- or just about all, either Democrats or a couple of Republicans that worked for President Obama.”
However, at a bare minimum, Monday’s actions involved Republican Robert Mueller, Republican Trump-appointee Rod Rosenstein, Republican Trump-appointee Geoffery Berman, and the heavily GOP-oriented NYC FBI office which was the source for multiple anti-Clinton rumors before the election.