美国国家公共电台 NPR Trump Blasts 'Total Witch Hunt' After FBI Raids His Longtime Attorney's Office

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MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

We learned late this afternoon that federal agents have gone into the office of President Trump¹'s longtime personal attorney Michael Cohen. This was confirmed by Cohen's attorney. President Trump called the raid a disgraceful situation. NPR's Ryan Lucas is covering this and joins us now.

RYAN LUCAS, BYLINE²: Hi there.

KELLY: All right, you've got your hands on a statement from Michael Cohen's attorney confirming this FBI raid. What does the statement say?

LUCAS: Well, Cohen's lawyer is a man by the name of Stephen Ryan. And in this statement - provided some greater detail as to what exactly transpired³ today. So he says the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York executed a number of search warrants against Cohen today. This would have been in New York. He says that federal agents seized what he called privileged communications between Cohen and his clients. Remember here that one individual that Cohen works with is of course President Trump.

KELLY: Sure.

LUCAS: And interestingly, Ryan says that he was advised that the raids are in part, quote, "a referral by the Office of the special counsel." That's Robert Mueller. He says that these...

KELLY: So the Russia probe.

LUCAS: Well...

KELLY: Maybe.

LUCAS: Maybe - we don't know yet. There's a lot of stuff to clear up here. So Cohen's attorney, Stephen Ryan, said these raids were inappropriate and unnecessary. He says the tactics are wrong, says that Cohen has cooperated completely with the government and government investigators⁴, that he's provided documents and has sat for depositions⁵. At the moment, the U.S. Attorney's Office is not commenting. So the only confirmation⁶ that we have, of course, is from Cohen's attorney.

KELLY: Is this one statement. Michael Cohen, of course, has worked for Trump for many years from well before his, you know, election as president and ascension to the White House. Michael Cohen knows a lot. I mean, remind us of the background here.

LUCAS: Well, as you said, Cohen has worked for the president for a long time. It's a very close relationship. Cohen has actually been quoted in the press at one point as saying that he misses the sort of daily interaction that he used to have with President Trump - longtime personal lawyer for the president, worked for The Trump Organization as well, almost seems to act as a fixer for the president.

He's been, you know, tied up in a lot of business affairs as well as kind of personal business of the president over the years. And, of course, he's tied into the Russia investigation⁷ through his work for The Trump Organization and talks that were ongoing⁸ in late 2015, early 2016 about a possible Trump Tower in Moscow. That deal ultimately collapsed⁹.

KELLY: Now, the reason Michael Cohen has been in the headlines a lot recently is a totally different thing. This is the Stormy Daniels matter, the allegations of an affair between Stormy Daniels, adult film actress, and President Trump, allegations that the president has denied. But is there a sense that this raid today has anything to do with that matter?

LUCAS: Right now there's not a lot of clarity as to what exactly it relates to. It could be the Stormy Daniels threat. It could be something tied up with the special counsel's Russia investigation. It could be something else. We don't know at this point. The FBI has not commented on this. There's been no comment from the U.S. Attorney's Office. And of course in Stephen Ryan's statement - that's Michael Cohen's lawyer - there wasn't clarity as to what exactly it was tied to.

So that will hopefully become clearer over time. But there are a lot of various threats here. You mentioned Stormy Daniels, of course the alleged¹⁰ $130,000 payment that Michael Cohen made to her. And that, of course, is tied up in the courts now.

KELLY: The question that's also on my mind is the why question. Michael Cohen's lawyer says Cohen has been cooperating. He's handed over thousands of documents already. If that's true, why would the FBI need to do a raid?

LUCAS: Well, there may have been concerns about potential destruction of evidence. If this is indeed about attorney-client privileged communications, that takes us to another level. Various possibilities here, but there's not - again, not a lot of clarity at this point. Hopefully more details will come out as the evening and days of this week proceed.

KELLY: And we shall wait for you to bring them to us. That's NPR's Ryan Lucas reporting on this FBI raid today targeting President Trump's personal lawyer Michael Cohen. Thanks a lot.

LUCAS: Thank you.