Lawyers for President Donald Trump say they should be allowed to review the material seized by the Federal Bureau of Investigation last week from Mr. Trump’s longtime lawyer Michael Cohen before government investigators begin their own examination, according to a court filing late Sunday.

The filing asks​ a Manhattan federal judge to stop the government from using a “taint team” of prosecutors to review the evidence for documents protected by attorney-client privilege and to issue an order allowing Mr. Cohen, Mr. Trump and their legal teams to comb through it first for “materials over which the President asserts privilege.”

After Mr. Trump identifies which communications he believes are privileged, the government taint team can make objections, the filing said, and the court can make the final determination about which materials investigators are allowed to see.

The government is expected to respond to the filing Monday morning.

On April 9, FBI agents raided the office, home and hotel room of Mr. Cohen, as part of an ongoing grand-jury investigation by the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office into Mr. Cohen.


Prosecutors stopped their review of the seized evidence after lawyers for Mr. Cohen filed for a temporary restraining order, arguing the raid swept up privileged materials both between Mr. Cohen and his clients and between Mr. Cohen and his own lawyers.

The government proposed using a special group of prosecutors who are walled off from the criminal investigation, also known as a “taint” or “filter” team, to identify which documents are protected by attorney-client privilege and which are relevant to the probe, a method that lawyers for Mr. Cohen and Mr. Trump both oppose.

On Monday President Trump called the raids at the office of his lawyer, Michael Cohen, a "disgrace" and a "witch hunt" and discussed the possibility of firing special counsel Robert Mueller. Photo: Getty. (Originally Published April 10, 2018)

In Sunday’s filing, Mr. Trump’s lawyers say the government’s statements “indicate a disinclination to find privilege, a bias that virtually guarantees that there will not be a fair privilege review of the seized materials.”

Prosecutors have said most of the seized materials deal with Mr. Cohen’s “personal business dealings,” not with his work as an attorney. The FBI has reason to believe Mr. Cohen possesses a “low volume” of privileged documents, and Mr. Cohen allegedly told at least one witness that Mr. Trump is his only client, according to a government filing.


A federal judge hasn’t yet ruled on who should get the first look at the evidence. A hearing on the matter is scheduled for 2 p.m. on Monday in Manhattan federal court, and the judge has ordered Mr. Cohen to be there.

Attorney-client privilege protects communications between lawyers and clients from being used as evidence against a defendant, but there is a “crime-fraud exception” to the privilege, which means the communications may not be protected if they were in service of an illegal act.

Write to Nicole Hong at nicole.hong@wsj.com