This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

In a setback for Donald Trump, a judge denied a request by lawyers for Michael Cohen, Trump’s longtime personal attorney, in federal court on Wednesday for more time to review material seized in the FBI raid last month on Cohen’s home, hotel room and office.

Cohen’s lawyers also clashed in the courtroom with Michael Avenatti, a lawyer for Stormy Daniels, the actor and producer of pornographic films, who alleges she had an affair with Trump more than a decade ago and was paid $130,000 in hush money by Cohen, which was later reimbursed to Cohen by Trump. Avenatti is an active thorn in the side of the White House and had come to court to press for his inclusion in the proceedings.

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Judge Kimba Wood warned Avenatti, who has frequently discussed the Cohen case on TV and social media, that if he joined the proceedings he would have to shrink his media profile.

Public discussion of the case by participants could “potentially deprive him [Cohen] of a fair trial by potentially tainting a jury pool”, Wood said, calling the proceedings a “potential precursor to a criminal proceeding if charges are filed”.

Avenatti withdrew his request for inclusion after the hearing had ended.

The FBI raids were conducted as part of a continuing investigation of Cohen on potential charges of bank fraud, wire fraud or campaign finance violations.

The stakes for the president are high. If prosecutors charged Cohen, Cohen could come under intense pressure to cooperate with the government in its investigation of the Trump campaign, as three other former Trump aides have already agreed to do.

Trump has denied all wrongdoing, as has Cohen.

Appearing in the southern district of New York, Cohen’s legal team argued that material seized in the 9 April raid was protected by attorney-client privilege and should not be used by prosecutors.

Lawyers for Cohen said 15 attorneys plus two data experts had been working “full-time” to sort through millions of seized documents, including electronic files, to decide which should be held back, but they could not hope to finish the process before mid-July.



“We’re moving heaven and earth,” said Cohen’s lawyer Todd Harris, responding to a suggestion by federal prosecutors that Cohen’s team was seeking to delay the proceedings by slow-walking the review process.

“We have people working all night, we have people sleeping on couches,” Harris said, adding that one associate lawyer had even “developed a tremor in his hand. I had to send him home.”

Wood told Cohen’s team to complete its work by 15 June.

A prosecutor revealed that the contents of a shredder and two Blackberry devices were all that remained to be turned over to a court-appointed special master, who is screening evidence to determine what is covered by attorney-client privilege. Also reviewing the materials are lawyers for Cohen, Trump and the president’s family business empire, the Trump Organization.

Upon leaving the courthouse in lower Manhattan, Cohen – who also has the Fox TV star Sean Hannity as a client – did not reply to a shouted question about whether he intended to cooperate with prosecutors. A few people not related to the attending media lingered in the area as Cohen emerged. “Fuckin’ traitor!” yelled one.

The courtroom witnessed fireworks as Cohen’s lead lawyer, Stephen Ryan, attacked Avenatti, accusing him of committing a “premeditated drive-by shooting of my client’s rights” by leaking sensitive bank records pertaining to Cohen – records that showed bankers had filed suspicious activity reports over money flows through Cohen’s Essential Consultants LLC.

Avenatti helped to publicize the fact that AT&T, Novartis and others had paid Cohen hundreds of thousands of dollars for consulting services in the year after the inauguration.

Ryan said Avenatti had “published that information gratuitously. He intended to prejudice and cause harm, and he did. What Mr Avenatti did was entirely reckless and improper.”

Ryan further argued that Avenatti should be barred from the proceedings by pointing out that Avenatti’s former law firm was ordered by a bankruptcy court last week to pay $10m to a former partner.

Avenatti denied any misconduct and said the bankruptcy case was irrelevant, pointing out that Trump had “had his fair share of bankruptcies over the years”.

“The irony of that, your honor, is fairly palpable,” Avenatti said.

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Avenatti argued for his right to participate in the proceedings because the seized material, he said, included audio recordings between Cohen and the lawyer who represented Clifford in the hush agreement, Keith Davidson.

Avenatti said he was “disturbed” that Cohen had had conversations with Davidson about Clifford and recorded them. Davidson also represented a second woman who has alleged an affair with Trump, the former Playboy model Karen McDougal, in a separate deal in which McDougal sold exclusive rights to her story to a tabloid, which then buried it.

Avenatti accused Cohen of leaking information about the audio tapes to members of the media “in an effort to paint a false narrative about my client or for some other purpose”.

Ryan denied that his team had leaked any audio material, saying his law firm had audio tapes “under lock and key”.