Judge Orders Release of Redacted Cohen Raid Documents – By Alan Neuhauser (US News) / March 19 2019
The public will be able to see redacted versions of documents that led to the FBI raid of President Donald Trump’s former longtime lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen.
A federal judge in New York on Monday ordered prosecutors to release redacted documents that led to the search warrant related to the FBI’s raid last year of Michael Cohen’s office and other properties.
The order by U.S. District Judge William H. Pauley III came after nine news organizations sought the release of the information.
Cohen’s attorney, Lanny Davis, said in a statement that the court’s decision to make the documents public “only furthers [Cohen’s] interest in continuing to cooperate and providing information and the truth about Donald Trump and the Trump organization to law enforcement and Congress.”
Prosecutors had opposed the release, arguing that it “would jeopardize an ongoing investigation and prejudice the privacy rights of uncharged third parties.”
The judge, however, said in a filing last month that “the public interest in the underlying subject matter of the materials – which implicates the integrity of the 2016 presidential election – is substantial.”
Cohen had served as President Donald Trump’s longtime lawyer and confidant. He testified before a House committee last month about hush-money payments he said he made at the president’s behest, as well as Trump’s alleged efforts to evade taxes and his broader conduct in office.
Cohen in December was sentenced by Pauley to three years in prison in connection with the hush-money payments; he had also pleaded guilty the previous month to lying to Congress.
