“Approximately 731 pages of messages, including call logs,” were found on those apps and were turned over to Michael Cohen’s lawyers on Friday to be reviewed for potentially privileged materials like attorney-client communications, as well as “highly personal” information, prosecutors said. | Richard Drew/AP Photo Feds reassemble shredded docs, access encrypted messages from Michael Cohen raids

Federal prosecutors in New York revealed on Friday that they had pieced back together shredded documents found during search-warrant raids in April targeting Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump’s longtime personal attorney.

Lawyers from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan also said they’d managed to download the contents of one old BlackBerry found in the raids, as well as messages from encrypted apps, including WhatsApp and Signal, found on newer phones.


“Approximately 731 pages of messages, including call logs,” were found on those apps and were turned over to Cohen’s lawyers on Friday to be reviewed for potentially privileged materials like attorney-client communications, as well as “highly personal” information, prosecutors said.

The disclosures came in updates submitted on Friday to U.S. District Court Judge Kimba Wood, who is overseeing a process to review objections that Cohen, Trump and the Trump Organization raised to the immediate examination of the Cohen by prosecutors investigating him.

The retired judge whom Wood appointed to manage that process, Barbara Jones, told the court on Friday that either Cohen or Trump or his companies had retreated from a few of their privilege claims. So far, just a tiny fraction of the material seized appears to be privileged and unlikely to be disclosed to prosecutors.

Of 639 “items” in 12,543 pages of paper records, Jones said, 13 items were deemed privileged or partially privileged, but she’s still considering how to treat one item.

A review of 291,770 items on two phones and an iPad resulted in Jones’ recommending that 148 items be considered privileged and/or partially privileged. Seven items were deemed highly personal, Jones said.

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Jones also asked that a Friday deadline to complete the review be extended until June 25.

The judge said in an order Friday afternoon that she was still considering Jones’s proposal to extend that deadline. She gave parties to the case until Monday to lodge any objection to Jones’s recommendations.

Prosecutors also said in their report Friday that the FBI was “still in the process” of trying to extract data from another BlackBerry and couldn’t predict how much data might be on it.

Cohen’s home, office and hotel room were raided two months ago in connection with a federal investigation into potential wire fraud, as well as possible violations of campaign finance law related to a $130,000 payment Cohen arranged days before the election to the adult-film actress Stormy Daniels. She says the payment was “hush money” to keep quiet about a sexual encounter with Trump in 2006.

