Nothing political. Other kids in springfield are sobs. That kind of lapping wage has no place on or off tv and thats my two cents. I dont know all those sobs. What the. Yeah. Good morning, everyone, its tuesday, april 17th. Welcome to morning joe. With us we have National Affairs analyst for nbc news and msnbc. How was the circus yesterday. Oh, boy. Sometimes its a metaphor and sometimes its literal. Yesterday it was literal. We were talk, tom wolf volunteer wo have been embarrassed to lay it out. You had the president , the president s lawyers, you had cymbal woods, you had the porn star. Stormy. You had the press conference on the steps, and then hannity. Hannity. If tom wolf had passed this by his wife when he was writing bonfire too much. He lets not do that. It was a great Old Fashioned new york city legal political tabloid maihem scene. And just to inject sean hannity what was going to be circus environment, stick sean hannity in that, all over the place. This was right here, daily news. Ka boom. Okay. Theres that. He says it was just little, and he didnt need to mention it. Steve radnors here, msnbc legal analyst danny sa vol lis joins us as well and jonathan materially. He says he didnt have to mention that mention it despite the fact he had gone on earlier this week savaging the ra raid on mike cal cohens offices. I dont know how you get around that its completely staggering dishonest with his viewers, with i mean, look, how you can cover the story and not say youre a part of it. Willie, what do you think . I would fire someone who did that on my network. Go ahead. Of course theres no question it should have been disclosed. With that said i find thune surprising completely. I think theres an assumption that sean hannity is working and in glove with the president of the United States. He has dinner at the white house, dinner at maralago. He said outloud i want him to be president of the United States during the campaign. Its not like a journalist whos covering the story has not disclosed that hes for sean hannity. He should have said it, you of course. But im saying no one can be surprised that sean hannity is perhaps in bed with donald trump. Right. Lets say it was a massive, massive law office and he used a separate attorney. But how many clients does Michael Cohen have . Three. Three, oh. And two of them are men who were looking at payoffs to women and the third shan knitty. The only thing only thing. Do you not disclose this . The difference between knowing that sean hannity was a huge trump fan and has been an apologist for him and been a pit paul fall for him nonstop and is proud of that, thats far different than him being part of a story, john, that nobody knows hes part. Were going a little light on mr. Hannity here. Documents that were seized in the raid last week are documents that almost inevitably involve correspondence between mr. Cohen and his client mr. Hannity. So last week when he was complaining about this being a politically motivated witch hunt and how inappropriate and ridiculous it was, do not disclose that you were actually a participant, you were involved in this. Youre explainicomplaining abou document that affects you because audio recordings of him and Michael Cohen were the things that were raid. Its not commented on it that way its just an outrageous violation of journalistic we dont know the exact timing when he had his consultations with mr. Cohen. But why if you were immersed in all these president ial shenanigans and all this stuff would you go to the lawyer . There are a million lawyers in new york. Why would you go to the one thats the president s lawyer. If you talk to trump every day and he says i have a good lawyer zblour i kn i dont know. It is such a small deal, oh, its a small deal. Right. In fact, he actually said i never even gave him a dime. So there really wasnt even Attorney Client privilege so i guess why not mention it . Theres nothing to theres nothing to be protected. So he now seems to be like he would be stopped from going back to the court saying you have to protect our communications because he said theres no Attorney Client privilege there, i never gave him a dime. With that said, if it wasnt a big deal, then you should have told your viewers. Hey, its not a big deal, ive talked to him for legal advice myself. B but this raid is still wrong. Never giving him a dime Means Nothing in trump world because theres tons of favors being done and fixes being done, and thats what weve learned about Michael Cohen. Michael cohen is not a real estate lawyer and there are plenty of Real Estate Lawyers in new york. And just to be clear, im not going light on sean hannity, he should have disclosed that of course. But is anyone on the panel surprised by this news anyway . Im a little surprised. Im not surprised that Shawn Hannity is close to people that Donald Trumps close to. Did not disclose. I think it is the case that Attorney Client privilege can add to a relationship where a lawyer where no money changes hands. If youre going to decide youre going to represent me. It is. Sean hannity said i never gave you money, he wasnt even my lawyer, i just talked to him then suddenly youre youre actually on that line. So, again, to my second point then. This is not the the context for this was cohens attorneys were saying they fought for days to not have this name disclosed. They claimed that Michael Cohen this three big clients. So the notion that sean hannity is saying i asked him for a couple pieces of legal advice at a Backyard Barbecue. Tell us. If thats not a big deal, why are they fighting in court over in front of a federal judge against a Southern Districts prosecutors. Someones lying. In fact sean hannity had very little contact with him and hes blowing it up, or hannity is lying about the extent of relationship. But they made a big deal out of this. If it wasnt a big deal they shouldnt have made it a big deal. How did it play out in court . It played out between kpan tended colloquy between judge wood and cohens attorneys saying were trying to figure out whether Attorney Client privilege pertains to these documents and how to figure that out. But she was saying you need disclose who this clients name is and they went on saying we shouldnt have to do that, we dont want to do it can we give it to you in a sealed document and envelope . The reason it was so dramatic in court was because it came tend of 20 minutes of argumentative back and forth in which it seems that cohens attorneys were ready to lay themselves down on the Railroad Tracks to stop the disclosure of this name. Why . And they did maintain at one point that they were not just representing Michael Cohens interest but they were doing it on behalf of the client. Hannity said yesterday dint want him do this. But somebodys lying because they made a big deal about trying to keep this secret and they were basically order and forced in court to disclose the name. Why were they so desperate to keep his name out of the public. Leer by the way is how the sean hannity disclosure played out live on fox news. Inned its proceedings that are under way right now, steven ryan, one of cohens attorneys was asked by the judge to specifically name the other name because they said it would not fall under Attorney Client privilege to withhold that name. And he stoold stod up and name sean hannity. Of course for us the elephant in the room for the moment is that sean hannity is said to be a third client of Michael Cohen. Theres a statement at the Hollywood Reporter from hahn knit that i says weve been friends for a long time, he did some legal work for me. Hannitys producers are looking to contact him, well report on it when we know the rest of it. A lot of people here know his number so well get on that in just a second. Wow, the reporter wanted to move on quickly. She dp did not want to. My god, how awkward. The only reason why his identity was revealed was because of trumps and cohens request to review the material seized in last weeks raid. As for that, yesterday the judge denied the president s motion to temporarily block prosecutors from reviewing the material, however, she did not rule out the possibility of using a taint team or special master to determine which of the seized evidence is protected by Attorney Client privilege. Judge cymbal wood said, quote, i have faith in the Southern District attorneys office. Their integrity is unimpeachable. A think a taint team is a viable option. She asked all of the lawyers to reconvene for the best course of action after they have finished seegs documents from cohen. Sitting right behind conin court is porn star Stormy Daniels who is suing to be released from the noun u nondisclosure agreement he arranged. She walked into court surrounded by photographers literally tripping over each other. What a circus in the courted it. In terms of stormy. You were in the middle of that. Tell us about it. I mean, it was a scene and, you know, its funny. Watching this case play out from a distance over the course of the Stormy Daniels case that is, you have to see it through the way its mediated from the eyes of the press. Shes become less than the global sensation put walk around with michael whos going to be on the show later today, hes become a famous super lawyer in the vein of some of the people who were in the o. J. Simpson case and the spres obsessioned with her. And when she came ought to do her statement, basically the scrum of 400 reporters and camera men or whatever it was, they were there to see her, they were not there to even see Michael Cohen or the lawyers, they wanted to hear Stormy Daniels speak and shes got to be one of the most famous women in the world right now. She is. Jonathan, it may seem strange to express any concerns. Let me be, as always, the difficult one here. To be concerned about constitutional norms and the rule of law and whether it was applied fairly to a man who spends an hour every night doing whatever he can to, i think, undermine constitutional norms and the rule of law in his defense of donald trump and his slandering of Robert Mueller. But, i just cant help i cant help but be concerned by the fact that this Robert Mueller investigation which started with collusion just like bill clintons investigation started with a failed land deal has now spiraled out of control and all were talking about are playboy bunnies and porn stars and relationships with other women, something that all of america knew before donald trump was elected and possible payoffs, which is not illegal in and of itself. And were seeing, at least arkansas as a lawyeas a lawyer, not a good lawyer but a lawyer all the same, we see a seizing of attorneys files and for some reason Sean Hannitys name being revealed when it seems to me a judge could have very easily take ten in chambers and said here are your three clients and then figured out how to sort it out there. I understand that sean hannity has acted in such a loathsome manner that there are few people that have any sympathy for him whatsoever. That said, thats why we are given constitutional protection, that even the most loathsome among us are protected from a sort of mob mentality here. What could the court have not done this differently . Well, ive always been very critical of this rule. What cymbal woods was on good ground when she said that she could require that the name be disclose dollars. Theres a case called vengali in the Second Circuit that says the name of the client itself is not protected by Attorney Client privilege. Thats the thing ive always objected to because i believe people should be able to have confidentiality including sean hannity when they contact an attorney. Theres theresan exception under this dhas says if the disclosure of the attorneys name would be tantamount to the disclosure of a communication it is protected. And judge wood was really sort of probing that and coned you load i dont that really the disclosure of the third name does not appear to be raising some confidential communication. Right. Thats what i think is very unfortunate, because many people want to talk to attorneys and the fact that he spoke to an attorney does put them at risk or embarrasses them. If you allow this rule to be applied as it has, not just by judge wood but other judges, people are reluctant to talk to attorneys if this could come out. And by the way youve guchb an example before. You go to a certain attorney and that attorney lets say that someone whos a Financial Adviser go to a bankruptcy attorney for whatever reasons, he o she should be able to do that. Or a divorce attorney. Yeah. Some attorneys only do divorce and so if you spoke to them, thats probably the subject matter. Okay, lets move on to the other question i have. Just overall, whats it is a about this investigation . And, again, nobody knows what Robert Mueller is doing right now because he runs a very, very tight ship. But just as far as the prwise, it seems were a long, long way from the Russian Ambassador whispering sweet nogs to Jarrod Kushner in the transition or Jared Kushner going to banks or donald trump trying to get him to help russians win him wisconsin. We started talking about collusion and then rightly hes investigating obstruction of justice. How did this spin so wildly out of control that over the past month all weve been talking about are porn stars and playboy bunnies . Unfortunately, this is much of the doing of the Trump Legal Team specifically Michael Cohen. He made the every possible wrong move. He allowed this case to metastasize. He could have avoided this. There is no good news coming out of new york for the president. The only good news sat least the judge said someone was unimpeachable but unfortunately that was the prosecutors. The district of new york prosecutors, exactly. So that doesnt work out as well as you had hoped. So what youre saying is that donald trump, which weve accused him of one selfinflicted wound after another politically, youre saying the same thing has happened legally that, in fact theyre find themselves in this position, not because of Robert Mueller, not because of the Southern District of new york, but because of one selfinflicted wound after another by Donald Trumps legal team . Yeah. And specifically Michael Cohen. Its really ironic that much of this hearing was the question of Attorney Client privilege because weve all still been debating what Michael Cohen is. Many of us still do not know whether he was acting as an attorney for trump in things like the Stormy Daniels case. So this could not be a more telling moment for Michael Cohen. Now, putting that aside, you dont have to be a good lawyer to be a lawyer. And so, you know, he has grounds to say i am the attorney for obviously President Trump and also for sean hannity put also dont have to accept money in order to trigger an Attorney Client conversation. So all of that hes on good ground. But he obviously has now lost the ability to retain some of this information. You know, the use of these filter teams or taint teams have long been controversial and youre right, joe, this should be a concern for people. This is a serious matter when Attorney Client material is handed to the department of justice and they make the determination of whats privileged. And in answer to your first question, i think it would have been much better to be able to have done what cohens lawyers asked for, that is to give the third name to the court under seal. I dont understand why courts dont do that more often. The court could have looked at that and said im going to give these names to the filter team or the magistrate, lets separate out all the material that deal with these three names, set it aside. Right. And then take that first group and you can go ahead and proceed with that and then well fight over the second group. It seemed gratuitous that Sean Hannitys name was thrown out there. I was going to say, it seems gratuitous and, again, it made a lot of headlines, you got a lot of people talking, but its something that the judge could have said, come on, lets take it in chambers, well see who the third client is and if theres a public need to know, thats fine. But if were gijust embarrassin third client were not going to do it. The reason they were in court is because of the president of the United States tried to say this raid has happened, the search warrants were granted, all this stuff was taken, now they have to figure out whats covered by the prif lanl and what privilege and whats not. The position was not that the prosecutors or the Justice Department of the Southern District should be able to make that determination or not even a special magistrate. The propos