Michael Cohen hunts for new lawyers in FBI probe

NEW YORK — Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, is searching for a new legal team to represent him in an FBI investigation of his business dealings.

A person familiar with the matter told The Associated Press on Wednesday that Cohen’s current legal team plans to stop handling the case and that Cohen has begun a hunt for new attorneys.

It wasn’t immediately clear what prompted the change or who would take over. The person, who wasn’t authorized to discuss the matter and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity, also noted that Cohen has not yet held any discussions with prosecutors about potentially co-operating in the investigation.

Cohen has been represented since 2017 by Stephen Ryan, a Washington lawyer initially hired to prepare him for congressional testimony about alleged Russian interference in the presidential election.

After FBI agents raided Cohen’s office in April, Ryan and his New York partner, Todd Harrison, went to court to try to keep investigators from seeing some of the confiscated files on the grounds that they were protected by attorney client privilege. The pair, along with lawyers for Trump, have been working for weeks to identify documents that should be withheld from prosecutors.

Federal prosecutors have publicly said they are investigating alleged fraud in Cohen’s business dealings.