Conducting a raid this afternoon on an office and a hotel used by Michael Cohen, who is trumps personal lawyer. Also a longtime executive at the Trump Organization. A man that trump put that extra heat on in that unusual air force one statement thursday. Cohen is also the center of two of Donald Trumps largest legal problems, the russia probe and the 130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels. Second, the raid collected eve on cohens role in getting money to Stormy Daniels, as well as other records, this according to the New York Times, including emails, tax documents, and business records. So right there, you have the president s lawyer and fixer, a confidant who predates trumps days in politics losing control of all kinds of obviously important material. The feds have it now. And then theres item number three. The reason that its always tricky to get a judge to approve a search on a Lawyers Office. Tonight the fbi seizing, quote, private communications between cohen and trump himself. Now, cohens team says the search was inappropriate for that reason, among others. And donald trump may not use email, but we know Michael Cohen does. Now his private emails and any records he has about things that trump said, sfrom secrets about the Trump Organization to Stormy Daniels to maybe other ndas, again, theyre all in the feds hands tonight. Which makes it all the more odd that donald trump said what he said on thursday. Youll have to ask Michael Cohen. Michaels my attorney and youll have to ask michael. All of that is all coming home to roost tonight. And some of this is important because it shows why this matters and who has the most heat on them. Now, consider the vast majority of people caught up in this probe have been asked for documents or they get a subpoena. Trump org got a subpoena. Sam nunberg got a subpoena. The only people that its been publicly confirmed that theyve had an fbi raid on their office is Paul Manafort and Michael Cohen. Manaforts home was raided. 97 days later, he was indicted. Michael cohen is a lawyer. He knows what it means when the feds raid. It means they convince adjudge theres either evidence of a crime or criminal concern that key evidence could be destroyed. And i can also tell you tonight, this is historic in a bad way. You know during the entire watergate scandal, which toppled a president , the fbi never raided any of president nixons personal lawyers. Thats according to watergate prosecutor, nick ackerman, who asked about this tonight. And finally, the other reason why this matters, bob mueller doesnt get a criminal referral for something up in new york, potentially outside of his jurisdiction, without going to Rod Rosenstein, which reportedly he did, and tonight rod rosestein didnt say stop, red, he didnt say, yellow, slow down. He said green. And he sent these agents to Michael Cohens office and to his hotel tonight. And this is big news. Let me turn now to an expert panel. Former federal prosecutor, paul butler. Krystal ball, president of the peoples project, robert selly. So back when you were at doj, how high does it go . You have to go to the attorney general or Deputy Attorney general. This is a search warrant on steroids. The president s lawyer, his own personal lawyer, who on thursday hes referring reporters to is now the target of a search raid, which means that the investigators do not trust this man. Theyre concerned that if they just issue a subpoena for the documents, hes going to take out the paper shredder. So, again, another gangster move by special counsel Robert Mueller. He follows the investigation, lets the investigation go whatever the leads take him. Youre saying this is not whitecollar or kid gloeves. This is going after it like you would go after any other criminal enterprise . Yes, and thats constantly been his method. And i think the comparison to manafort has been exactly right. Middle of the night, noknock search warrant. Mueller does not trust these guys. Hes persuaded the attorney general for the Southern District of new york that cohen is not trustworthy. There was a lot of talking about subject versus target with regard to muellers view of the president. Can you say anything what this means about Michael Cohens exposure . I think hes a subject about to graduate to becoming a target. As a practical married, the standard for a search warrant is probable cause. Common sense, realistic, if its the president s attorney, its a way higher standard than that. You have to have pretty compelling evidence of criminality to get Rod Rosenstein to sign off on a search warrant for the president s lawyer. Senator, do you agree with that . I do. I will tell you, as a member of the bar and as a civil libertarian, i dont believe in raiding Lawyers Offices, but more importantly, neither do the senior people in the Justice Department, absent compelling evidence. To convince the Deputy Attorney general of the United States, the United States attorney for the Southern District of new york, a trump appointappointee, federal judge to allow a raiding of a Lawyers Office involved in a criminal case, it is hard to put sufficient weight on that for your audience. It does not usually happen. Now, i think where a lot of your colleagues, all afternoon ive been watching, how wrong this is, they didnt do this because they think theres a Campaign Finance violation. They did this because either they believe hes in conspiracy to obstruct justice or because evidence is being destroyed. You think youre putting your finger on something very important. You think, because of the high bar it takes to go at any lawyer, given the Attorney Client confidentiality rules, let alone the sitting president s lawyer, this is more than a farflung fec campaign theory. You think there is some other indicia evidence of crime or conspiracy. Ive listened to that from your colleagues all afternoon. That is ridiculous. This is not a Campaign Finance violation. Under the edwards case, that was a problematic case to begin with. It is a correctable offense. It is not that level of offense. They have evidence of some kind of obstruction of the process. And were on the record on this show of reporting exactly why it is unlikely that you would bring a criminal charges based on the stormy payment to Michael Cohen. Indeed, ive had communications with Michael Cohen about our reporting on that front. I would say as someone whos given, you know, given that analysis once, what im seeing tonight as a lawyer, along with your analysis is, something bigger than the fec is at foot. Something bigger. Lets take it to the next step. One of the reasons the Justice Department does not usually do this is, because they do have a probe going on obviously, these are sorted efforts. And when you raid a Lawyers Office, i dont care if they have some kind of a chinese firewall, you are still making your case problematic. You can violate Attorney Client, you can complicate your case. So there was a compelling reason to do this. They were willing to take the risk with the case, willing to take a risk of going to a federal judge, and everybody said, yes, along the way. So, heres what ive not heard said all afternoon. Is Rod Rosenstein in his job tomorrow . Does donald trump go through this evening without firing the u. S. Attorney for the Southern District or Rod Rosenstein . I think thats an open question. Let me take that point to krystal ball and read the reporting from bloomberg as well as some of our own folks working on this. Mueller brought the information involving cohen to Rod Rosenstein, who decided the matter should be handled by the u. S. Attorney for the Southern District of new york. Does people a when people ask, does the system work . The pressure on sessions and rosenstein. Tonight is a night where the system appears at this hour to be working. The senator says what happens next hour . And krystal, theres reporting that donald trump is watching this all live on tv as he sees evidence gathered from cohens office and trump knows better than most people what cohen has in there. Thats exactly right. And to just talk about Michael Cohen as trumps personal lawyer understates that relationship. First, this relationship goes back more than a decade. Michael cohen has said he would take a bullet for the president. Has told katy tur and others those exact words. He described working for donald trump, he said, hes more than our boss, he is our patriarch. So if he was, indeed, the fixer, as hes essentially said he was on the Stormy Daniels issue, what else has he been the fixer on . What else does he know . What other zloumdocumentation i there . So i think the senator is right to focus on the fact that this wasnt just about Stormy Daniels, right . The reporting says that this was tax documents, this was business records, this was other email communications. And as you point out, donald trump is in a position to know, to some extent, he may not even know the full extent of what Michael Cohen has, but he knows how far this goes and how problematic it is for him, personally. Let me follow up with another question to you on that, which is, what were seeing at this stage in the probe is evidence, an indication of intense interest in the older advisers, in Michael Cohen and roger stone. Were moving away from some of these other people who have either pled out or maybe didnt know donald trump for all that long. I want to play sam nunberg, who did have his falling out with the president and with roger stone, talking about Michael Cohen during our interview here on the beat. I worry about michael. Im not going to say michael is going to lie. Im worried about michael. Michael cohen got screwed the most i ever saw by anyone, by donald trump. And what i worry about is what michaels going to say when hes called in by someone like Andrew Wiseman about the banks. Krystal, you have worked in politics. It is a nonpartisan fact that loyalty is prized in politics. The difference is whether you have ethical and legal lines around how you pursue loyalty. Because theres also loyalty to the country. Right. Your view of these people and their view of loyalty you mentioned the bullet is Michael Cohen in a place where as the fbi goes through this material, as hes under this heat, his loyalty remains only to donald trump, not to his higher obligation as a lawyer or a citizen . Well, up to this point, what weve seen is exclusive loyalty to donald trump. So if past is an indication of what we expect to continue to see, you know, that loyalty has been second to nothing else including claiming to pay his own personal funds to Stormy Daniels in the amount of 130,000 to try to cover trump on that piece. So i think that absolutely is the direction that he would go in. And i think its worth, also, backtracking a little bit, where this all comes from. It was Jared Kushner who pushed donald trump reportedly, to fire comey. Comey leads to the special counsel and thats what leads to this referral. So when they said they were going to really look at everything that was going on, that they were going to take the evidence wherever it leads, this is part of that piece, where you end up raiding the president s personal Lawyers Office. I want to do a lightning round, yes or no to all of you, and as we continue, do you think donald trump, whos not known for regret or selfassessment, selfreflection, i think its fair to say, krystal. Fair. Do you think as he watches this tv coverage, because we have out on Good Authority that hes watching and he knows theyre going through the files and he knows whats in those files, do you think he regrets saying on thursday, ask Michael Cohen . I think he regrets it and i think he regrets allowing the special counsel to cross that red line he laid down earlier of going into the business transactions. Because theres a lot of dirt there. Im going to interrupt the lightning round. We have some breaking news, im being told. Washington post is reporting that there are a range of allegations here against Michael Cohen, that this includes potential bank fraud, potential wire fraud, and a probe of the wider Campaign Finance issues. So thats fresh from the Washington Post, breaking as we sit here. And this is this is germane to the question, which i turn to each of you on. If thats what happens when you ask Michael Cohen, if this is what pressure looks like, paul, does the president regret saying that thursday . Unless hes crazy about the idea of now having not one, but two great teams of prosecutors and investigators looking at him. So apparently mueller asked rosenstein, can we look at this . And it sounds like rosenstein said, this is something that might be more appropriate for this other district, for the u. S. Attorney for new york. And so the result of that is, hes got two hardcore prosecutors looking at not only the lawyer, cohen, but also trump. And krystals point about cohens very expansive role is germane here, because theres an Attorney Client privilege. Theres not a privilege for mr. Fixit. Theres not a fixit privilege. Or a privilege on taxes or Financial Transactions or business records. And you cant use conversations with your attorney to evade criminal activity. And so what the fbi does is have whats called a tank team. So these are lawyers and prosecutors who arent working on the investigation. They go through the documents. They conduct the raid, go through the documents, and they only turn over to the investigators documents that arent that arent protected by the Attorney Client privilege. And thats very risky for the government, for a defense team to go after. Which is why im so convinced this is a serious case. They wouldnt have taken that risk. There are two things does he regret it . Theres two things donald trump is not capable of. Regret. And playing defense. Okay. Which means watch the next 24 hours. He will pivot on the offense. And he will try to change the conversation. Also for the whole panel, when you hear bank fraud, does that sound like something that is constrained to Michael Cohen as a lawyer . Or does it sound like something that could infect a wider circle, when you know he was a senior trump org executive . Let me tell you. Ive watched the Trump Organization for years, because because you live the donald was once the largest employer in new jersey. Let me explain the Trump Organization. Theres a wonderful scene in the godfather, he says, i have a very unusual law probation. I have a single client who insists on hearing bad news immediately. This is not a law firm down the block, that has a variety of clients. This is a lawyer with a single client. And they are inseparable and the actions of one are the actions of the other. It sounds like youre coming very close to saying an investigation of bank fraud by Michael Cohen is an investigation of bank fraud by donald trump. And again, i think the standard to have raided that office today, i cant say this enough to your audience, is so high that they believe that in that bank fraud, not just that it exists, but something must be done to undo so i go back to you, because we are full circle. The reason why the Stormy Daniels case so instructive because it is a template of a legal strategy that is used in more than just that kind of case. The fact that donald trump both pushed hard allegedly for an nda, he entered the case claiming the nda protects him, but wouldnt sign it, gives a hint to his approach to incriminating evidence and tells you why it might be so hard in a collusion probe finding him signing or touching everything. With that in mind and the senators very careful line, do you see any other echo here . Duke that its possible that the going rogue defense they used on Stormy Daniels will be teed up on bank fraud or anything else, if Michael Cohen is under investigation for bank fraud, which is what the Washington Post is reporting, even if its rogue bank fraud, wasnt for the trump org. When i hear bank fraud, thats an easy crime to prove. Its all on computpaper and com transactions. If hes being charged of tha