Trump Worlds Collide in New York Legal Tug-of-War: Cohen Update

• April 16 2018

President Donald Trump is seeking to stop his own Justice Department from reviewing records seized from his longtime private lawyer, Michael Cohen.

Who’ll get the first look at the Michael Cohen cache? The Trump legal saga’s burning question is being taken up now in Manhattan by U.S. District Judge Kimba Wood. Prosecutors want government lawyers to review material seized from Cohen’s office, home and hotel room on April 9 in FBI raids. President Donald Trump and Cohen, his longtime personal lawyer, want to block them. Among those on hand: Stormy Daniels, the adult-film star who took a $130,000 hush payment from Cohen shortly before the 2016 election.

Hearing Gets Under Way

The hearing over Cohen’s records got under way shortly after 2 p.m. Watching from the gallery was not only Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, but also former Governor Elliot Spitzer of New York, who made a surprise appearance for reasons that weren’t immediately clear.

Also in attendance is Robert Balin, a lawyer with Davis Wright Tremaine who said he’s representing a consortium of media outlets including ABC TV. He said he filed a request with Wood asking her to make an audio recording of the hearing available for the news media and the public. Balin told Bloomberg News that the practice is used by the Supreme Court and Second Circuit. (Patricia Hurtado, 2:12 p.m.)

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Meet the Judge

Wood was nominated to the federal court by President Ronald Reagan in 1987 and confirmed the following year. In 1990, she sentenced Michael Milken to 10 years in prison, which was later reduced to two years.

President Bill Clinton nominated her as his pick for attorney general in 1993 after his previous nominee, Zoe Baird, withdrew over off-the-books payments to her nanny, an undocumented worker. Wood, who’d hired the worker before it was illegal to do so and paid the required taxes, was also withdrawn.

In 2010, Wood presided over a case against Anna Chapman and nine other Russian agents who were arrested and then deported in a prisoner exchange. (Bob Van Voris, 2:12 p.m.)

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President Donald Trump is fighting an extraordinary legal battle in Manhattan on Monday, seeking to stop his own Justice Department from reviewing records seized from his longtime private lawyer, Michael Cohen.

Among those expected to attend a hearing at the federal district court in Manhattan is Stormy Daniels, the adult-film star who claims she had sex with Trump in 2006 and took a $130,000 hush payment shortly before the 2016 election. Cohen, who has said he made the payment from his own account, has been ordered to attend.

Cohen’s home, office, hotel room and safety-deposit box were raided by the FBI on April 9 as part of a long-running criminal investigation of his activities. Prosecutors in New York haven’t identified what specifically they’re probing, although they said in a court filing that “the crimes being investigated involve acts of concealment by Cohen.” Special Counsel Robert Mueller is separately examining possible ties between the Trump campaign and Russian interference in the 2016 election.

It’s unusual enough for federal agents to seize an attorney’s records, and unprecedented to take those of a president’s personal lawyer. Federal prosecutors want a team of government lawyers to review the material to determine what’s covered by the attorney-client privilege and what can be passed to investigators.

Cohen is asking for the review to be conducted by a court-appointed attorney. Trump will be represented by his own lawyer, Joanna Hendon, who has requested that the president be given a chance to review the seized materials, which includes more than a dozen electronic devices.

The matter will ultimately be decided by U.S. District Judge Kimba Wood.

— With assistance by Jeffrey Grocott, David Voreacos, Christian Berthelsen, Patricia Hurtado, Bob Van Voris, and Chris Dolmetsch