Taint team. Hope they wear HazMat suits.
Adam Davidson, the New Yorker writer who wrote the recent article about Cohen, is a careful reporter who has spent a lot of time navigating some of Trump’s business deals (he’s also an acquaintance of mine). In his piece, however, he refers to Trump’s company as "a small, sad operation, mostly run by his two oldest children and Michael Cohen."
Just don’t let Cohen handle the originals. Ooops, sorry. I spilled my coffee on that one marked “Putin gifts.” Ooops, I accidentally drilled through that hard drive. Clumsy me.
Oh, that’s actually good. The Trump lawyers are incompetent, almost by definition as well as performance, which means they will either try to declare everything should be restricted or else pick and choose only the most suspicious/damning items. In either case, I suspect the judge will then require them to prove why each document (or class of documents) should be covered. In the first case, she likely will just say no and let the government have everything, while in the second the questioning, and the documents, will point the investigators in the direction of the bad things that have been done. Even if they don’t get the documents the first time, that gives them a path to follow for the next warrant that will get them the documents.
This is just amazing theater to watch…and it’s all being done through the courts and openly, which is a good thing. In many ways, this is better than waiting for Mueller’s report, which can be declared biased and swept under the rug. Now, we just have to wait and see if what we all think is going on really comes out…I suspect Cohen will be found to have engaged in criminal activity, but whether we get a connection to Trump remains to be seen.
This is too similar to the “hanging chad” cluster f%%k of the 2000 election. OTOH, there is a Federal judge involved.
The politicized hysterics of which the Cohen-Trump team complain - and which Judge Wood has bowed to in diverging from the US Attorneys Manual 9-13.420 - is nothing but the politicized hysterics created by the Cohen-Trump-Hannity-Etc team. I fail to understand why Judge Wood decided a deviation from normal process was due these goombahs.
As I read this, Cohen/Trump lawyers get to review the documents for privilege, but they don’t get exclusive possession of any of them. And the determination whether any of the materials are in fact privilege will be left to a later time.
So, does anyone who has PACER have access to the Minute Order?
Maybe I am not reading this correctly but it looks to me as if the government lost. The taint team will organize any potential attorney client privilege materials in a searchable data base with Trump and Cohen’s legal teams.So, I am correct to assume that both Trump and Cohen will see other evidence too? Meanwhile the government’s case is on hold and is not allowed access to any evidence.
I swear, Cohen must be John Mitchell & Rosemary Woods’ love child.
Someone leak this fucker.
Please, I ask for so little.
Someone on teevee said that the hard drives were copied the day of the raid and originals were left with Cohen.
No I don’t think so. But I would like to read the judge’s order myself.
Isn’t it that the prosecution has to release documents to Cohen’s team on a rolling basis? No one seemed to think that turning docs over was bad.
The tighty-righties are exploding on Twitter over “Clinton confidante and deep-stater” Kimba Wood being the presiding judge.
Certainly an…interesting…turn of phrase there.
And of course my mind is in the gutter. Consider the source…
I think the first part says it all …
'A federal judge denied Michael Cohen’s request for a temporary restraining order on the government’s review of records seized from him last week. But Judge Kimba Wood instead laid out a process for government lawyers to do a superficial review of the documents, while Cohen’s attorneys are also allowed to review them. ’
The bad guys wanted to keep the good guys out …
not gonna happen …
One word: Appeals.
She was nominated by st. Ronnie. Wonder if they know that. Or care.
As I understand things that if there are documents showing Cohen’s culpability in any illegal doings, those documents would not be covered under client lawyer privileges. What I do not understand is how does the government get to find such documents? This is the crux of this argument.