USA TODAY International Edition
Michael Cohen expected to split with legal team
Michael Cohen, a personal lawyer and longtime fixer for President Donald Trump, is expected to break with the legal team that is representing him in a federal investigation into his business dealings, a person familiar with the matter said Wednesday.
Lawyers Stephen Ryan and Todd Harrison, at the McDermott, Will & Emery law firm, have been representing Cohen in the federal investigation that led to a raid on his home, office and hotel room. The expected split has led to questions about whether Cohen will cooperate with federal prosecutors in the probe into his business dealings.
The person, who is not authorized to speak publicly about the matter, said a switch would likely not take place until a court-ordered review of documents seized in the raid was completed. The deadline for the review is Friday.
Neither Cohen nor his lawyers responded to a request for comment from USA TODAY. ABC News broke the news of Cohen’s change in counsel.
The change wasn’t made official in federal court as of Wednesday afternoon. The court would notify the judge and prosecutors of his change in counsel. The investigation into Cohen has been heating up in recent weeks and his team has been going through millions of documents as part of the court-ordered review.
After the documents were seized, Cohen argued that his team should be allowed to view them and flag any potentially covered under attorney-client privilege. Trump and the Trump Organization also jumped in, asking to view the documents before they were handed over to prosecutors.
A special master appointed by Judge Kimba Wood started reviewing the documents and had identified 162 that were privileged so far. Cohen has until Friday to flag any other documents for review.
Also in recent weeks, two civil lawsuits were filed, one claiming Cohen colluded with Keith Davidson, a lawyer who represented porn star Stormy Daniels, in order to protect Trump. Another suit filed by Davidson targeted Cohen for allegedly recording conversations they’d had without his knowledge.
The tapes, along with other aspects of Daniels’ nondisclosure agreement, were reportedly among the documents seized by federal agents.