Lawyers Concealing Criminality through Client/Attorney Relationships
It seems clear that the FBI Director Robert Mueller is upset as this President is not on side. This public experience reveals the corruption of lawyers and how people are silenced through payoffs. This very issue of secrecy is repugnant. The clash between the intelligence community and the Whitehouse may reveal more information about corruption.
In respect of lawyers I do not believe they should protect their clients or engage in any criminal activity. This client privilege should not be applicable if it is to conceal illegality. It is when lawyers driven by greed become legal protectors, protecting the reputation of others that they become accomplices in potential or actual crimes. This is crossing the line. If they do this life will bring the source of their corruption back to them. What goes around comes around. We are in times where what has been hidden is being revealed in the light of public scrutiny. It is in the wars between people that external wars take root. Until we resolve and face our own issues rather than use people for our own ends, we will continue to suffer the consequence of unconscious and indifferent actions.
In many respects Trump’s personality and behavioural issues are revealing publicly – dysfunction, inappropriate behaviour, stubbornness, retribution and power players positioning for internal wars. I think of Kennedy here because of his clash with the intelligence community and the issues he was seeking to bring to the surface. It reveals the roots of why people seek power, how they hold onto it and how ultimately those in power lose themselves and their integrity. The clash occurs because of cultures of collusion, expected compliance have occurred over many years, unquestioned. This happens outside of public scrutiny. I am speaking of both camps.
What will bring down power is really not from the outside. It will happen within as the weakness is in seeking power. This is how blind spots arise as arrogance blinds people. They cannot see the other side. I send peace to both camps and a wish for not mud slinging but to remember who they truly serve. Cleverness divides intelligence unites (Eckhart Tolle). Is what you fear true? (Byron Katie)
Sean Hannity revealed as Michael Cohen’s mystery third client
Fox News host says he might have handed Cohen ‘10 bucks’ but that none of his discussions ‘involved a matter between me and a third party’
Jon Swaine, Oliver Laughland and Dominic Rushe in New York
Sean Hannity said his dealings with Cohen involved ‘occasional discussions with him for his input and perspective’. Photograph: Rick Scuteri/AP
Donald Trump’s legal fixer Michael Cohen has also been representing the firebrand conservative Fox News host Sean Hannity, one of only three private legal clients Cohen has taken on in the past year, his lawyer told a federal court on Monday.
The revelation came as a federal judge rejected a bid by the president and Cohen to prevent US prosecutors from examining a cache of documents and recordings seized from Trump’s long-time confidant.
Cohen’s office, hotel and home were raided by the FBI last week following a referral from special counsel Robert Mueller that incensed the president and opened Trump up to a second front of legal peril.
Last week district judge Kimba Wood had ordered Cohen to disclose all his private practice legal clients since he left the Trump Organization after the 2016 election, but the president’s longtime confidant had partially resisted the court’s order. In a letter to Wood from his attorneys, Cohen disclosed that he had been representing the president and the disgraced former GOP fundraiser Elliott Broidy, but declined to reveal the identity of a third client.
However, lawyers for Cohen were forced on Monday afternoon to disclose that Hannity was the third individual.
Hannity said he might have “handed him 10 bucks” for advice but none of those discussions “ever, ever involved a matter between me and a third party”.
The cable news veteran has frequently used his show to malign the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, led by Mueller.
Speaking on the evening the raids occurred, Hannity, who had not disclosed that Cohen was his lawyer, used his show to address Mueller directly. He said: “If you have evidence – any at all – show it to us or end this partisan investigation. The country is hanging by a thread tonight and you don’t seem to care.”
Federal prosecutors in New York want a special “taint team” of government lawyers to begin reviewing files seized from Cohen last week so they can decide which documents are protected by attorney-client privilege and which may be used to prosecute Cohen.
But at the hearing on Monday Wood indicated she might appoint a “special master” to assist government lawyers rather than allowing a taint team to work on the files unencumbered.
Cohen is under criminal investigation, prosecutors confirmed last Friday. He may face charges from a grand jury operating separately from one being used by Mueller for his Trump-Russia investigation.
Cohen is “being investigated for criminal conduct that largely centers on his personal business dealings”, Thomas McKay, an assistant US attorney, said in a court filing. Cohen has long described himself as an attorney for Trump but has for years filled a more wide-ranging role as a general troubleshooter.
Further adding to the drama, Stephanie Clifford, a pornographic film actor known as Stormy Daniels who alleges that she had a sexual encounter with Trump and was paid $130,000 by Cohen to keep quiet, was present during Monday’s hearing.
Communications between lawyers and the people they represent are typically kept confidential under the doctrine of attorney-client privilege. But an exception exists for documents providing evidence that the attorney was involved in a crime.
Trump’s attorneys had demanded in a letter to court on Sunday evening that the justice department’s plan be halted so that “our firm and the president may review for privilege those seized documents that relate to him” – an extraordinary request from someone in Trump’s position in this kind of case.
They called the FBI raids on Cohen’s home, office and hotel room “an operation disquieting to lawyers, clients, citizens and commentators alike”, and repeatedly referred to their client, whom they represent in a personal capacity, as “the president”.
Attorneys for Cohen had already applied to Judge Wood for a restraining order that would stop authorities reviewing the records seized from Cohen until Cohen’s team has reviewed the materials themselves.
McKay, the federal prosecutor, said in a court motion arguing against this that Cohen’s request was “unprecedented and is not supported by case law”. McKay stressed that the team of government lawyers who would review the seized material would be “walled off” from their colleagues, like himself, who are pursuing the criminal inquiry against Cohen.
The justice department has “reason to believe that Cohen has exceedingly few clients and a low volume of potentially privileged communications”, McKay wrote.