Journal in just the last hour, hannity simply explained, quote, weve been friends a long time. I have sought legal advice from michael. With us to make sense of how the president s fixers fate is now inextricably linked to his own, were joined by some of our favorite guests. Outside the new york courthouse, tom winter, Kristen Welker following developments from the white house, former chief spokesman from the Justice Department matt miller and joyce vance, former u. S. Attorney. Both matt and joyce msnbc analysts. Tom, lets start with you and the dramatic twists and turns which i heard from two friends at fox news, shocked them there in their workplace. But sean hannity now playing a role in this cohen legal drama. So, nicole, this all came up because earlier today Michael Cohen in a legal filing through his attorneys said that hes represented two clients three clients, rather, in the past two years. President trump, of course, because thats his personal attorney. The second attorney would be Elliott Brodie and the third person who didnt want his name to be revealed. In Court Proceedings, judge essentially ordered cohens attorneys to disclose the name after arguments from United States attorneys, after arguments for media lawyer arguing any name that should be mentioned in the court should come out publicly and that name is, as you have said, sean hannity, fox news host. So, basically what theyre saying is that at some point in the last two years hannity was engaged with Michael Cohen in a way that Attorney Client privilege might be invoked or might be sought in this case. So, thats what we know as far as the development of who Michael Cohen is represented. As far as the overall hearing which we believe is still underway and as of 4 00 here the doors are now shut, meaning we cant go back in, but judge kemba wood is continuing to hear arguments as to whether or not Michael Cohen has the opportunity to review all the documents that were seized in this search warrant, whether or not kind of of a referee, if you will, who is going to be an allison rosa arbiter here and have an opportunity to look and decide what Investigative Team has access to with the United StatesAttorneys Office or whether a separate team working for the United StatesAttorneys Office will be able to look at all the documents and items recovered from cohen and then will be able to hand over items that are not dont have to do with Attorney Client privilege in order for them to continue their investigation. So, thats whats being heard back and forth. One thing i do want to mention is President Trumps name has come up directly in court and was brought up by a federal prosecutor. They were talking about this notion of Michael Cohens letter this morning to the court where he said, hey, this is a highly publicized case. Theres all sorts of political back and forth. Theres questions about whether or not this investigation is independent or not. And federal prosecutors took exception to that. They said that mr. Trump mr. Cohen and mr. Trump have you used inflammatory language to be able to talk about this case and they said that that language drumd up some of the Media Coverage thats been going on over the past several days or frankly the last week since the search warrant was affected here in new york. Thats whats going on behind me. Again, the hearing continues. We dont know if were going to get a ruling today as far as whats going to happen if this temporary restraining order is going to be granted, if there is going to be any sort of special measures that are taken into account. So, obviously a lot still to be decided today. We may not even get an answer today, nicolle. This may be a written order we get from the judge either late tonight, tomorrow, or in the days ahead. So, a lot still to come. A lot to develop, but obviously a lot of information coming out of todays hearing so far. Kristen welker, i talked to a source who said he didnt know if donald trump was aware of Michael Cohens representation of sean hannity. But he confirmed that sean hannity is in constant daily contact with the president. And i went back and looked at Sean Hannitys reaction on the air monday night, the night of the raid of cohens offices which the president described in that building behind you as an attack. Actually we have that. Lets watch. The fbi has raided the office, the home and the hotel room of Michael Cohen. The personal attorney of the president of the United States. Robert mueller is so far beyond his mandate, this is now spiraling out of control. Everything that we have warned you about is now coming to fruition. And mueller has ostensibly tonight declared war against the president of the United States. Clearly his objective is to remove him from office. Now, i told you and ive told anyone who will listen, muellers team is corrupt starting with him and it has been from the beginning. I have to play that a couple more times because the whole thing is a laughable joke in the context of knowing now that part of what was unearthed in mondays raid of cohens offices could be documents pertaining to the legal relationship that Michael Cohen sought to keep secret this afternoon in a manhattan courthouse about representing sean hannity in some capacity. Well, right. A couple of points you raise that i think are significant, nicolle. First of all, the facts that you have sean hannity, the president and his allies now making the case that that raid that happened last week and these Court Proceedings today are all a part of the next we are witnessing the special counsel investigation cross a red line. So, privately its meant that the president has increasingly infuriated at mueller, at Rod Rosenstein and then publicly you see his allies attacking them more forcefully. I am told, by the way, talk of potentially firing mueller, firing rosenstein has abated a bit, particularly in the wake of the syria strikes, the president shifting his attention to that crisis for now. To the other point that you bring up, though, this revelation that Michael Cohen has represented sean hannity, sean hannity just speaking out about this moments ago, nicolle, on his radio show, let me read you what he has to say. He says, ive known michael a long time. Let me be very clear to the media, michael never represented me in any manner. I never retained him in a traditional sense, but i have occasionally had brief discussions with him about legal questions. And he goes on to say that there was never a thirdparty involved in this. So, again, hes trying to make the case this was him seeking legal advice from Michael Cohen. Nonetheless, it sort of underscores the fact there are links between all of these men and as you rightfully say, nicolle, sean hannity is someone who the president speaks with, who the president meets with at maralago, at times has met with at the white house as well. And so it provides this growing picture of sort of who is in the president s inner circle. And when you talk about an inner circle, it doesnt get much closer than Michael Cohen. Hes the president s fixer. Hes seen as his family, and thats why the president is so infuriated by all of these developments. That is why they are arguing in court today. They want to have the ability, the president s team, to see these documents before they become a part of this legal case. Well have to see what the judge decides. As tom points out, we might not have an answer today, nicolle. Kristen welker, i know youre covering a lot of different stories for a lot of us here in new york. If you have anything else that develops on the donald trump, sean hannity relationship or on anything, any reaction there from the white house folks to whats happening, still unfolding in that courthouse in manhattan, run back to that spot and well take it at any point in the next 55 minutes. Absolutely. Let me get to you, joyce vance, on the question of shaea hannity. Not only being the president s tip of the spear, in terms of being his messenger for the maligning, the character assassination of men like bob mueller and jim comey, the men who carried men and women who carried out the raid on cohens office had to reach an incredibly high bar to be able to raid and seize documents from the president s personal Attorneys Office. Does that look different in hindsight, knowing that sean hannity was one of Michael Cohens clients . It doesnt look different to me at all, nicolle. The search warrant says that the fbi and the u. S. Attorneys office provided probable cause to believe that cohen was involved in Election Campaign finance violations, was involved in either bank or wire fraud, and they were searching for evidence and for documents and for electronic information that would be relevant to that inquiry. So, the fact that theyve come across a clients information in a Lawyers Office is not unusual. Thats a situation that the taint Team Procedure the d. O. J. Uses all the time in these sort of cases is well equipped to handle and what would have normally happened had the president and cohens lawyers not objected to this process is that the taint team would have seen that there were files related to a third client who presumably is not part of the investigation. They would have shut those files and put them aside and they would have never gone on to the Investigative Team. The irony is that hannitys name only surfaces here because of the motion, the very unusual motion filed by cohen. To keep the documents to be able to go through them before theyre turned over to the investigators. Exactly. And the argument they made was that this culture the argument they made i think i have a line from that. In a filing today basically asserted that there is a culture or climate, i think was the word they used, that was politically biased. It turns out the bias is on the other side, lets ma ryan the rule of law, lets malign the Justice Department, malign the fbi, was one of the clients who sought to have his legal records protected. Yeah, its really pretty extraordinary. The president s argument is, im above the law. Even though theres no Legal Authority for doing things differently in a case involving me, you have to essentially because ive been maligning the Justice Department. Matt miller, let me bring you in on this. Youve got the keenest eye on what has really been some of the most startling developments of the trump era, sort of the constant war on the Justice Department, the constant character assassination against Donald Trumps own appointees at the Justice Department, at the fbi, a war waged largely night after night after night by sean hannity in the primetime hours on fox news. What do you make of todays finding that he was one is one of Michael Cohens clients and one of the people Michael Cohen sought to protect in terms of keeping those records under seal . I think what it shows is that they have an alignment, not just of common interest where sean hannity is speaking out on President Trumps behalf, but they obviously have a business relationship. Sean hannity now we know was a client of Michael Cohens. He said in that statement you played earlier that he was just seeking legal advice. He wasnt represented in any kind of matter involving a thirdparty. Its hard to understand what that legal advice is. Michael cohen is not an auguste lawyer. Hes a fiktsxer to payoff porn stars with hush money. For sean hannity, hes going to have to answer questions about what kind of legal advice that is and hes going to have to answer questions about why he didnt disclose that relationship when he was railing against the Justice Department last week, railing against this raid. And whether he was actually worried about some kind of information that would involve the matter for which Michael Cohen represented him that might become public or might become known to the Justice Department. We dont have any reason yet to believe its that relationship the department of justice is investigating. They seem to be investigating Michael Cohens work for donald trump, maybe his work for others. Maybe his own individual legal problems. But it raises serious questions. I say it raises serious questions about Sean Hannitys his objectivity. I dont think those are real questions or have been for sometime. But it raises serious questions with fox news let me press you, not about his objectivity, but his motive. Right. We have all accepted and there is a bit of sort of putting sean hannity on the couch that goes like this. That part of avenging roger ailes death is defending donald trump in a way they couldnt defend a man who was a fatherlike figure. I cant wait to talk to gabe sherman about that. Hes going to join us in a second. But there is something about the zeal with which they defend donald trump. So, it may not be a lack of objectivity, but it may be an additional motive to just ideological agreement with everything in the trump agenda. Yeah, thats exactly right. Not just ideological motive, but these are people who share all work in one kind of very small set of shared relationships. And now we find business relationships with the same attorney. What i was going to the point i was going try to make, you dont really question were not going to get into Sean Hannitys objectivity, but it raises real questions for fox news, whether they knew about this, whether he disclosed it to them, and whether they are okay with him continuing to rail against this investigation when we were now know he has a very personal interest in it. It goes beyond just him and goes to i think the entire network. Everyone is staying put. I want to play you sean hannity responding on his radio show just after this news broke a little over an hour ago. Lets listen and talk to gabe on the other side. Michael never represented me in any matter. I never retained him in the traditional sense as retaining a lawyer. I never received an invoice from michael. I never paid legal fees to michael. But i have occasionally had brief discussions with him about legal questions about which i wanted his input and perspective. And i assume that those conversations were Attorney Client confidential, but and the other thing i will need to point out to the media that is apparently going insane over this. Not one of any issue i ever dealt with Michael Cohen on ever, ever involved a matter between me and any thirdparty. Joining us by phone right now is gabe sherman, special correspondent for vanity fair and msnbc contributor. Hes written about fox news for many years. Gabe, you and i have had many conversations about the relationship between some of the most prominent figures on air and off at fox news and the republicans they cover and in many instances bolster. There is no one more integral to the Trump Defense than sean hannity. Yeah, thats right, nicolle. I mean, you cant really draw a line between where the Trump Administration ends and Sean Hannitys radio and nightly fox program begins. I mean, he has been so intertwined really from the beginning of the campaign. And, you know, for sean hannity, this is Donald Trumps ascendancy recommends something as a Second Chance for hannity. For years hannity really graded at fox of being second fiddle to bill oreilly. Bill oreilly was the 800 pound gorilla, the big star. When oreilly was forced out of the network last year amid Sexual Harassment allegations, hannity emerged as the unchallenged true star of the network and his close alliance with donald trump made his ratings bigger than ever. And this has been something of an ego inflater for sean hannity where finally late in his career he gets to be the biggest star in right wing media, i would say, probably bigger than Rush Limbaugh at this point. And hannity is famous for telling friends, he does dont this for the money any more, thats probably true. Hes fantastically rich. Hes doing this because he in his wildest dreams probably could never imagine being as influential as he is. Gabe, let me ask you a question, though, about what goes on inside fox news. There is not comfort in all corners of fox news with the line that sean hannity takes, the absolutism that he takes in defending everything donald trump does. With this development today, i looked back at some of the die hard conservative supporters of Donald Trumps, people like ann coulter and Laura Ingraham