danny cevallos and katie fang joining me here on a friday. let s start with this temporary restraining order. how significant is this? so what they are trying to do is figure out who s going to get the first bite at the proverbial apple of the evidence that was seized on monday during the raid at cohen s hotel room, office and house. so right now, the government wants to be able to use what it calls a taint team. a group of prosecutors that do not actually have a direct involvement in the prosecution of michael cohen but the problem is, can you necessarily unsee what you have seen or can you necessarily unhear what you have heard, if there really are tapes that were seized from cohen s places. what michael cohen wants is his own people to be able to review what has been seized, and right now, the judge is trying to decide can trump now make an argument, does he have a vested interest in how this should go down. who s got the better case based on what we know about the facts? prob
writes in part to nbc news first, i would like to sincerely apologize to my wife and family for the hurt that i have caused. i acknowledge i had a consensual relationship with a playboy playmate. at the end of our relationship this woman shared with me that she was pregnant. she alone decided that she did not want to continue with the pregnancy and i offered to help her financially during this difficult period. we have not spoken since that time. it is unfortunate that this personal matter between two consenting adults is the subject of national discussion just because of michael cohen s involvement. mr. cohen reached out to me after being contacted by this woman s attorney, keith davidson. although i had not previously hired mr. cohen, i retained mr. cohen after he informed me about his prior relationship with mr. davidson. i will have no further comment about this matter and i request the media respect my family s privacy. that statement just coming in to
attorneys take that first pass. normally, courts and defense attorneys alike are very critical of these taint teams because as you can imagine, the very thing that we try to keep privileged and away from law enforcement, now law enforcement is saying well, you can trust this little group of our uninvolved agents and lawyers to look at this and to not disclose any privileged materials. the request by cohen to have his own attorneys look at them first, not likely to happen. maybe the court will have a magistrate review them or provide for some other way to do a first pass of privileged materials, but it s definitely shooting the moon to get your own attorneys to review seized documents. the revelation that cohen apparently was taping conversations, reportedly taping conversations with some associates, how significant is that, what might that mean for attorney/client privilege? so if the conversations were being recorded and cohen was in new york, it s a one-party consent state and al
until that comes out, i think that that remains to be seen. of course, we know the fbi has taken a bunch of files from michael cohen. we may very well learn more. michael rothfeld with the wall street journal on another developing story here. again, michael cohen, the president s personal attorney, it s just been revealed he negotiated a more than $1.5 million settlement for a top republican fund-raiser who met playboy model and impregnated her. this was essentially part of another nondisclosure agreement. we will take a break, catch our breath and come back with more. how do you win at business?
cohen s alleged hush payment to adult film star stormy daniels and a payment made by american media inc., also known as ami, to karen mcdougal. the developments according to the washington post reports today said cohen had a penchant for taping conversations with associates. those taped files may have been seized by federal investigators during the raid. this morning, stormy daniels lawyer responding to the report. if that washington post story is accurate that michael cohen actually recorded these communications, played them for others and then saved them only to have them ultimately obtained by the fbi, then michael cohen is far less intelligent than i thought he was and i never thought he was that intelligent. michael avenatti there. on top of all of this, nbc news has learned president trump has also retained new attorneys.