OFFICE OF TRUMP LAWYER RAIDED FOR STORMY DANIELS PAPERS.

President Donald Trump condemned as “disgraceful” an FBI raid on the office and home of his longtime lawyer Michael Cohen, who paid $130,000 to an adult-film actress and who has been a key figure in the U.S. investigation into Russian election meddling.

Trump, speaking to reporters at the White House, defended Cohen as a “good man” and blasted the Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe as “an attack on our country in a sense.”

FBI agents on Monday seized documents from Cohen using several search warrants, his attorney Stephen Ryan said in an email. Prosecutors in the Southern District of New York oversaw the raid after the case was referred in part by Mueller, Ryan wrote.

The raid signals that the FBI and federal prosecutors in New York are conducting a criminal investigation involving Cohen, although it’s not immediately clear whether he’s a focus of that probe.

Trump also said it was a “terrible mistake” for Attorney General Jeff Sessions to recuse himself from the case. The referral to the U.S. attorney was approved by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, according to a person familiar with the situation.

Cohen, a longtime lawyer for the Trump Organization, paid $130,000 to Stephanie Clifford, an adult film actress known as Stormy Daniels. She has said Cohen paid her to keep quiet about having sex with Trump in 2006, the year after he married Melania Trump. Cohen said he made the payment without Trump’s knowledge, using his own money.

Trump said last week that he was unaware of any payment by Cohen. Clifford has sued Cohen and Trump in federal court in Los Angeles, seeking a ruling that the “hush agreement” she signed in October 2016 was never valid because Trump didn’t sign it.

Ryan said the use of search warrants was “completely inappropriate and unnecessary” because it resulted in the seizure of material protected by attorneyclient privilege.

The FBI raid was reported earlier by the New York Times. Agents raided the office, home and Manhattan hotel room of Cohen, the Wall Street Journal reported. Agents were still at the site of Cohen’s office at 30 Rockefeller Center in midtown Manhattan late Monday afternoon, a worker there said.

Mueller brought information involving Cohen to Rosenstein, who decided that the inquiry should be handled by federal prosecutors in New York, according to a person familiar with the situation.