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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Brumar89 who wrote (1064531)	4/9/2018 8:58:20 PM
From: Brumar89	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1574705

1/ Today the @nytimes reported that the FBI executed a search warrant at Cohen's offices, seizing a computer, phone, and personal financial records. The @washingtonpost reports that attorney-client communications were seized, which is not surprising. Renato Mariotti?Verified account @renato_mariotti 2/ The @washingtonpost also reports that Cohen is under investigation for bank fraud and campaign finance violations. That is consistent with the original @nytimes reporting that records relating to Stormy Daniels were seized. Cohen was responsible for that agreement and payment. 3/ So what does this tell us? Many things. First, federal prosecutors in Manhattan presented evidence to a federal judge who concluded that there is good reason to believe that Cohen committed a crime and that evidence of that crime was located in Cohen's office. 4/ That means that Cohen is under investigation and that there is substantial evidence that evidence of a crime was at his office. It also means that federal prosecutors believed that they could not obtain the same records via subpoena. That's unusual and interesting. 5/ The United States Attorneys' Manual (DOJ's guidelines for federal prosecutors) disfavors search warrants of attorneys' offices. Section 9-13.420 states that "prosecutors are expected to take the least intrusive approach" and should consider subpoenas instead of a warrant. 6/ Section 13.420 requires authorization by the United States Attorney or Assistant Attorney General, consultation with the Criminal Division of the Justice Department, a search warrant that is as narrow and specific as possible, and procedures to safeguard privileged materials. 7/ The reason that searches of attorney offices are disfavored is because they can be abused by prosecutors who want to intimidate defense counsel or obtain privileged information. That is why all of those safeguards exist, and the fact that they were overcome tells us something. 8/ The fact that federal prosecutors obtained a search warrant tells us that they believed that they would not obtain the same records if they used a subpoena. That's not only what 9-13.420 requires, but it's also common sense--the prosecutors had an incentive to use a subpoena. 9/ Cohen is an attorney who has his own lawyer. If the prosecutors used a subpoena, Cohen's attorney would be obligated to go through all the documents and materials himself and produce only what's relevant to the prosecutors. He would be responsible for organizing them as well. 10/ Instead, prosecutors and FBI agents decided to take upon themselves the hefty task of seizing these documents, setting up complicated procedures to weed out privileged materials, and organize and digitize the documents. They wouldn't have done that if they didn't have to. 11/ This suggests that they have some information about Cohen that suggests that he would destroy evidence, hide evidence, or otherwise deceive the prosecution team. So what does this mean for Trump? It's an issue for him for at least two reasons. 12/ First, his relationship with Cohen appears to go beyond a typical lawyer-client relationship, by Cohen's own description. Communications between Cohen and Trump would be reviewed by a "taint team" that is separate and walled off from the investigators. 13/ If the taint team found communications between Trump and Cohen that were not privileged, those communications could be used in the investigation. An example would be communications that are completely unrelated to legal advice, or communications furthering an ongoing crime. 14/ Second, Trump should be concerned because Cohen appears to have significant potential criminal liability. He could potentially cooperate against Trump, although he appears unlikely to do so. Trump could pardon Cohen for any federal offense, but he cannot pardon state crimes. 15/ Most importantly, because the search warrant was required to be "drawn as specifically as possible," the fact that the FBI seized Trump's communications with Cohen suggests that the FBI believed that those communications may provide evidence in their criminal investigation. 16/ That should worry Trump. It doesn't necessarily mean that investigators believe Trump committed a crime, but it suggests that they believe that his communications would have potentially contained useful evidence. He was, at least, in close proximity of a crime. 17/ One question that is raised by this news that we cannot answer is why Mueller chose to refer this case to Manhattan prosecutors instead of handling it himself. Perhaps we will learn more in the days to come that could shed light on his decision. /end