The fact that the president should not expect to be able to actually avoid accountability for his actions doesn’t mean he’s not going to continue trying to anyway. In that light, he has reacted with rage to the news that his personal lawyer Michael Cohen’s office was raided by the FBI on Monday, directing his fury at Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who is reported to have personally signed off on the raid.
The New York Times is now reporting in greater detail just what FBI agents with the public corruption unit of the Manhattan federal attorney’s office were after when they raided Cohen’s office. According to the publication, the FBI’s search warrant is aimed at uncovering information related to payments to two women who claim to have had affairs with the president, Karen McDougal and Stephanie Clifford, otherwise known as Stormy Daniels.
“Several people briefed on the investigation” also revealed to The Times that the agents were looking for information related to American Media, Inc.’s role in the McDougal case. AMI, which publishes the National Enquirer, paid McDougal a large sum of money for the rights to her story of an alleged affair with the president, but they never published anything about her story. AMI is said to have been in contact with Cohen during the negotiations surrounding their agreement with McDougal.
Both McDougal and Clifford have sued to be free from the respective agreements covering their alleged affairs with the president.
In Clifford’s case, Cohen delivered a sum of $130,000 in hush money accompanying a nondisclosure agreement that she claims is not valid because the president himself never signed it.
The president, for his part, has claimed to have had no knowledge of the payment to Clifford. Although he may be lying, he may have outed his lawyer as truly having carried out the Daniels agreement as an essentially under the table transaction. Acting on behalf of a client without that client’s knowledge is grounds for disbarment in New York, but that’s hardly the greatest of Cohen’s worries. He’s reported to be under investigation for possible campaign finance law violations and bank fraud.
Since apparently complying with authorities is not an option high on Trump’s list, The Times reports early Tuesday that in light of all of these developments, “Mr. Trump’s advisers have spent the last 24 hours trying to convince the president not to make an impulsive decision that could put the president in more legal jeopardy and ignite a controversy that could consume his presidency.”
Moves that could attract greater scrutiny for the president include firing anyone from Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to Special Counsel Robert Mueller, although the Monday raid on Cohen was not carried out as a direct component to the Mueller probe.
ABC reported Tuesday that the Trump appointee whose jurisdiction covers the Cohen raid is actually recused from the investigation.
U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Geoffrey Berman stepping back from the investigation was reportedly approved by Deputy AG Rosenstein himself, casting his position into seemingly even greater jeopardy.
Featured Image via Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images
