Malintent
Veteran Member
https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/09/politics/michael-cohen-fbi/index.html
FBI raids Michael Cohen's office!
Here is the original article that the CNN report referred to F.B.I. Raids Office of Trump's Longtime Lawyer Michael Cohen. The raid was conducted by the US Attorney of the Southern District of New York on a referral from the Mueller investigation. Some of the seized records may contain privileged communications between Trump and Cohen, so a special team of investigators have been assigned to process the evidence, presumably to cull out such records. I have a feeling that attorney-client privilege is going to be a serious issue in the aftermath of this raid, so it looks like they have strong evidence that Cohen committed a crime. Otherwise, they would not dare such a raid.
Not sure if this was yet mentioned, but in order to get a search warrant (a "no knock" warrant, no less) there are numerous hoops to jump through. The district attorney themselves must sign off (a Trump appointed official), a federal magistrate (judge - in this case, a republican), and one other official (I do not recall). All of that in ADDITION to the facts of the case being compelling to issue the warrant.
As I have heard (not confirmed by me) this has happened only two other times in US history (an attorney being "raided" with a "no knock" search warrant). both of the other times ended with the attorney being "raided" going to prison for federal crimes.
The justification to get this warrant MUST have included evidence that NOT ONLY Cohen would not hand over documents requested, but if they showed up at his door that he would likely destroy the evidence... thus, "no knock"... they bash in the door with guns drawn and seize everything.
Cohen IS going to prison. That much must have been established prior to getting this type of order against this type of person... at least, that is what whatever evidence they presented would have had to have shown.