Trump distances self from personal lawyer
NEW YORK (Reuters) — US President Donald Trump distanced himself from his longtime personal lawyer Michael Cohen on Thursday, hours before a judge ruled that documents seized from Cohen by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) should be reviewed by an independent courtappointed official.
The appointment of former judge Barbara Jones as a “special master,” to review the documents and decide which ones prosecutors should be allowed to see, was essentially a compromise that both prosecutors and Cohen’s lawyers had said they would be open to, even though that option was not their first choice.
The FBI raided Cohen’s office and home on April 9, infuriating Trump. Prosecutors said they had been investigating the lawyer for months, largely over his business dealings rather than his legal work.
Once they receive the documents from Jones, prosecutors could use them in their case.
It is not clear if those documents pertain to Trump’s business dealings. But earlier on Thursday in an interview with Fox News, Trump said Cohen had handled only “a tiny, tiny little fraction” of his overall legal work.
He said the investigation “doesn’t have to do with me” and “they’re looking at something having to do with his business. I have nothing to do with his business.”
Trump, who has said little publicly about an adult-film star who says she was paid to stay silent about a onenight stand she had with Trump in 2006, also confirmed for the first time that Cohen had represented him in “this crazy Stormy Daniels deal.”
Trump and Cohen have sought to limit which of the seized documents prosecutors could see, citing attorneyclient privilege.