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April 17, 2018
The Russia probe conducted by Special prosecutor Robert Mueller has taken a disturbing turn. Upon discovering information considered outside of the scope of his investigation Mueller referred the matter to the Justice Department and the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York (SDNY). Under the orders of the SDNY the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) conducted a no- knock raid of President Trump’s attorney, Michael Cohen’s office, home, hotel room, safe deposit box and electronic devices last week. Prosecutors have already covertly searched Cohen’s email accounts. This was a shocking move especially since Cohen was reportedly cooperating with the investigation.
It has been reported that the government is probing possible campaign finance violations, bank fraud, and crime in relation to silencing Trump’s accusers. Cohen has admitted to paying $130,000 to the adult film star, Stormy Daniels, who claims to have had relations with President Trump in 2006. The payment was made as part of a nondisclosure agreement just weeks before the election. The bank fraud accusation is also related to the Daniels’ payment. If this is the extent of the purported crimes, a raid of an attorney’s office, especially the President’s attorney, is an extremely aggressive and questionable tactic.
By most accounts the raid began with a foot in the door, and the yanking of Cohen’s phone from his hand. The agents proceeded to seize the attorney’s files and records, including privileged communications between Cohen and the President. Fittingly the American Civil liberties Union is threatening a lawsuit over the desecration of the sanctity of the attorney-client privilege. Just kidding- of course they’re not. They, and their fellow “resistance” comrades see no problem with this latest militant maneuver as they are among the unhinged Trump haters.
Not everyone is so blinded by hatred that they can’t see that this is dangerous territory. Most notably the renowned attorney, and Democrat, Alan Dershowitz, who makes clear that he is not a Trump supporter, has publicly slammed the aggressive search and seizure, claiming it violated Trump’s civil liberties and due process rights. He adds, “it will surely shake the confidence of many clients in promises of confidentiality by their lawyers.”
Dershowitz explained that prosecutors had less intrusive options at their disposal, such as grand –jury subpoena. For instance rather than an aggressive raid and seizure, bank records could have been subpoenaed from the relevant banks, and/or wherever relevant to the course of the investigation.
In an attempt to preserve the attorney-client privilege the SDNY has proposed to employ a “taint” team who will review the items seized and determine which documents are relevant and which are privileged, and therefore not accessible to the prosecutors assigned to the investigation. However this process is imperfect, as the taint team is comprised of government agents. Since the start of the Trump/Russia collusion investigation there have been countless leaks of information that have emanated from the DOJ, FBI, and Mueller’s investigation. Are Trump and Cohen really assured that privileged information will remain private?
The contrast between the handling of the Hillary Clinton criminal investigation and the investigation involving the Trump camp is striking. While Trump’s attorney was subjected to a no-knock raid of his office, home, and hotel room, where his files and records were taken without his permission, Clinton was allowed to sort through her emails and self-determine which were personal and which would be handed over to the FBI. Consequently she only gave the FBI half of her 60,000 emails, deleting 30,000.
In another display of head- scratching leniency the FBI permitted Clinton’s former chief of staff, Cheryl Mills to serve as her attorney and thereby allow her to invoke attorney-client privilege regarding their discussions about the emails. This is particularly odd since not only did Mills not work in a legal capacity for Clinton while at State, she was also a participant in the facts under criminal investigation. In addition, Mills was allowed to sit in on Clinton’s FBI interview, enabling Clinton and Mills to corroborate their official statements, which were never recorded, transcribed, nor taken under oath.
Further, the FBI could have compelled witnesses in the Clinton probe to testify through the issuance of subpoenas, instead they chose to give five Clinton aides, immunity in exchange for their cooperation. One of those witnesses Paul Combetta, Clinton’s computer specialist, permanently deleted, with a software program called Bleachbit, tens of thousands of Clinton’s emails, while they were under subpoena, in addition to taking a hammer to her 13 blackberries and 5 IPads (remember when Clinton claimed she only had one device) to ensure that the deleted emails were never seen. Yet, he was given immunity.
Both Cheryl Mills, and Huma Abedin, Clinton’s long-time aide, lied under oath. Each claimed that they did not know that Clinton used a private email server until after Clinton left the State Department. However, emails show Abedin and Mills discussing the server while Clinton was still Secretary of State. Neither faced any charges.
The smoking gun proof that the FBI was not conducting an impartial investigation is the fact that two months before Clinton was interviewed, and before interviewing more than a dozen witnesses, James Comey, the then Director of the FBI drafted her exoneration letter. The Comey announcement of the reopening of the email investigation, two weeks before the presidential election, does not belie that the FBI handled Clinton’s case with kid gloves. As Comey explained during his recent book tour, he only made this information public because he was convinced that Clinton would win the election, and he didn’t want her presidency tainted.
In contrast Trump’s brief National Security Advisor, Mike Flynn lost his job, his home, his financial solvency, and is facing the loss of his freedom, with a possible five- year jail sentence. His crime, like Mills, and Abedin, he lied to the FBI. However, in Flynn’s case the agents who interviewed him, reported that they did not believe that he had lied to them.
A surprising casualty of the Cohen raid was Fox News host Sean Hannity. In court yesterday Cohen was forced to implicate Hannity as his “third client”. (Cohen only had three clients in 2017) It is unclear what the nature of the legal work performed by Cohen for Hannity entailed. On his radio and television programs Hannity stated that he only had informal conversations with Cohen about real estate.
As a result of the confiscation of attorney-client privileged documents swept up in the raid, Cohen and his attorney spent the day in court yesterday fighting to protect the privileged documents. U.S. District judge Kimba Wood ruled that all of the seized documents should be shared with Cohen’s lawyer, to enable input on what is deemed privileged. She will consider allowing the appointment of a “special master” to review the material to ensure that privileged material is not provided to investigators. This was a partial win for Cohen and his attorney. They were hoping to be granted exclusive veto power over what prosecutors may review. At least for now, prosecutors are barred from examining the seized material.
Kimba Wood, the Judge overseeing the case against Cohen, was one of then- President-elect Bill Clinton’s nominees for U.S. Attorney General in 1993. (Clinton withdrew her nomination after it was revealed that she did not pay taxes on an illegal immigrant employee). In addition, Wood was the officiant at the 2013 wedding of the billionaire George Soros. Soros is well- known for his funding of far left political activism. For the President’s, Cohen’s and for the sake of our country, hopefully Judge Wood will rise above her political leanings, unlike those at the top level of the FBI, and rule with impartiality.
