FBI Raids Office of Trump Lawyer
By VOA News April 09, 2018
The FBI raided the office of President Donald Trump's personal lawyer Michael Cohen Monday and seized documents, including those related to Trump's alleged affair with an adult film star.
The New York Times was first to report the raid on Cohen's office in Rockefeller Center in New York City.
Stephen Ryan, Cohen's attorney, said federal prosecutors obtained a search warrant on a referral from special counsel Robert Mueller. Mueller is investigating possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Ryan called the search "completely inappropriate and unnecessary."
"It resulted in the unnecessary seizure of protected attorney-client communications between a lawyer and his client," Ryan said.
He also pointed out that Cohen has been cooperating completely in all probes into Russian election meddling, including "providing thousands of non-privileged documents" to Congress.
The White House, the U.S. Attorney's office and Mueller's office have not commented on Monday's raid.
Although Mueller's probe is focused on Russian election interference, under law, he would need approval by the U.S. attorney general if he discovers something else during his investigation that he deems worth looking into.
Since attorney general Jeff Sessions recused himself from the Russian election probe, deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein would have been the one to approve the FBI raid on Cohen's office.
Cohen paid actress Stormy Daniels $130,000 in the days before the 2016 presidential election to keep quiet about an affair she allegedly had with Trump in 2006.
Trump has said he was unaware of the payment, which some legal experts believe may have been an illegal campaign contribution to keep Daniels from speaking out and possibly destroying Trump's chances of getting elected.
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