On 4/10/18 8:58 AM, Keyser Söze wrote:

...than having your office raided by the FBI is having your lawyer’s office
raided by the FBI.



From The Washington Post:

We also know that a search warrant, unlike a grand jury subpoena,
requires prosecutors to go before a federal judge to demonstrate
probable cause that a crime has been committed and evidence of that
crime can be found in the premises to be searched. Before approving a
search of a lawyer’s office, a judge would want to be satisfied that
there was some substance behind the prosecutors’ allegations. This is
not just some prosecutorial fishing expedition; it bears the imprimatur
of a federal judge.

This was not just any search warrant; that the raid took place at a
lawyer’s office further highlights the seriousness of the investigation.
Searches of an attorney’s office are extremely rare and are not favored,
due to their potential to impinge on the attorney-client relationship.
Prosecutors must jump through multiple hoops to get such a warrant
approved, both within their own office and at the criminal division of
Main Justice. (Notably, this would likely have included approval by
Trump’s own guy, the new interim U.S. attorney for the Southern
District, Geoffrey S. Berman, who was just appointed by Attorney General
Jeff Sessions this past January.)

Prosecutors are also required to consider less intrusive alternatives to
a search warrant, such as a subpoena, if practical. Approval of a search
warrant suggests prosecutors were able to demonstrate not only the
gravity of the potential case but also the risk that evidence might be
destroyed or otherwise go missing if they pursued a less aggressive option.

Cohen, and perhaps the president, will likely argue that this raid
violates the attorney-client privilege. Indeed, on Monday evening, Trump
said it was “a disgrace what’s going on.” In a search like this,
prosecutors typically set up a privilege team or “taint team” of
investigators not involved in the case to review potentially privileged
documents and shield those from the team actually involved in the
prosecution. There is an exception to the attorney-client privilege if
communications to an attorney are used in furtherance of a crime or
fraud; that could come into play here as well. And documents related to
anything Cohen did on his own — after all, Trump has denied knowing
about the payment to Daniels — are likely not privileged if they do not
contain attorney-client communications. Documents are not automatically
privileged simply because they passed through an attorney’s hands.