Last week, the FBI executed a search warrant at the office of Michael Cohen, a lawyer who has worked for President Trump. The Washington Post reports that Cohen is being “investigated for possible bank and wire fraud,” perhaps in connection with “buy[ing] the silence of people who . . . could have damaged Trump’s candidacy in 2016.” The New York Times story on the matter is here. President Trump and others have suggested that the execution of the warrant was inappropriate because it infringes on the attorney-client privilege. Without getting into the politics, what do we know about the law? A search warrant for privileged material would be improper. Everyone agrees that a search warrant can’t target material that falls within the attorney-client privilege. Such material is legally protected and inadmissible and a search warrant for it would be unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment. Lawyers’ offices often contain material that is not privileged. Lawyers’ offices typically contain quite a bit of non-privileged material. For example, lawyers may keep personal correspondence in their offices, or employment agreements with their employees, or tax records for their firms. They may hold non-privileged documents provided by clients. A few lawyers even have contraband of various kinds in their offices. The Post asserts that in Cohen’s case, one issue under investigation is “whether any fraud was committed in connection with Cohen’s ownership of taxi medallions.” If Cohen committed misrepresentations while acquiring taxi medallions as an investment, that would appear to be conduct committed on his own [...]
Faculty Coordinators
