FBI probes Trump lawyer Cohen’s personal ‘business dealings’
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 U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan had previously declined to confirm existed.