NEW YORK: Federal prosecutors revealed on Friday that their probe of President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, involved suspected fraud and the attorney’s personal business dealings and was going on long enough that investigators had already covertly obtained his emails.

The details in court papers came as lawyers for Cohen and Trump sought to block the Department of Justice from examining records and electronic devices, including two cellphones, seized by the FBI on Monday from Cohen’s residences, office and safety deposit box.

The raids enraged Trump, who called them an “attack on the country.” Trump, a Republican, sent his own lawyer to a hastily arranged hearing before a federal judge in Manhattan to argue that some of the records and communications seized were confidential attorney-client communications and off-limits to investigators.

Prosecutors blacked out sections of their legal memo in which they described what laws they believe Cohen has broken, but the document provided new clues about an investigation the US attorney’s office in Manhattan had previously declined to confirm existed.

“Although Cohen is an attorney, he also has several other business interests and sources of income. The searches are the result of a months-long investigation into Cohen, and seek evidence of crimes, many of which have nothing to do with his work as an attorney, but rather relate to Cohen’s own business dealings,” said the filing, signed by Assistant US Attorney Thomas McKay.

Prosecutors said they took the unusual step of raiding Cohen’s residence and home rather than requesting records by subpoena because what they had learned led them to distrust he’d turn over what they had asked for.

“Absent a search warrant, these records could have been deleted without record, and without recourse,” prosecutors wrote.

The document was filed publicly after lawyers for Cohen appeared before US District Judge Kimba M. Wood to ask that they, not Department of Justice lawyers, be given the first crack at reviewing the seized evidence to see whether it was relevant to the investigation or could be forwarded to criminal investigators without jeopardizing attorney-client privilege.

Trump attorney Joanna Hendon told the judge that the president has “an acute interest in these proceedings and the manner in which these materials are reviewed.”

“He is the president of the United States,” she said. “This is of most concern to him. I think the public is a close second. And anyone who has ever hired a lawyer a close third.” McKay, the assistant US attorney, told the judge that he believed the proceedings were an attempt to delay the processing of seized material.

“His attorney-client privilege is no greater than any other person who seeks legal advice,” he said.

Cohen’s lawyers, Todd Harrison and Joseph Evans, rejected that argument in a legal memo. They also asked that certain documents related to the case remain sealed to protect the privacy rights of “innocent third parties” who would be subjected to a media circus if their names became public.

Published in Dawn, April 15th, 2018