Day 463: Trump Undercuts At Least Two Legal Strategies in One Bizarre Interview
Donald Trump called into Fox & Friends for a Thursday morning interview. He thought it went well.
This despite the Fox & Friends hosts desperately trying to keep Trump on message for the duration of the chat. When they failed to do so, and Trump exhibited the typical conspiratorial rambling he’s famous for, they stifled laughter and squirmed uncomfortably. Eventually, host Brian Kilmeade said he assumed Trump was very busy, thanked him for his time and ended the interview.
But the interview couldn’t conclude before a few big revelations that deal with pending legal issues.
Within hours, federal prosecutors pounced on Trump’s public claims that Cohen did very little legal work for him, which potentially has a substantial effect on the seized files that they can potentially review.
On Thursday, Trump first seemed to drift off message when he told the TV hosts that Cohen performed only a “tiny, tiny little fraction” of his legal work. Prosecutors in New York seized on those comments to argue that few of the records the FBI seized from Cohen earlier this month fall under attorney-client privilege protections, despite Trump’s legal team’s arguments to the contrary.
“President Trump reportedly said on cable television this morning that Cohen performs ‘a tiny, tiny little fraction’ of his overall legal work,” prosecutors said in a letter to U.S. District Court Judge Kimba Wood. The prosecution team also noted that another Cohen client, Fox News host Sean Hannity, also minimized the volume of legal work Cohen did for him.“These statements by two of Cohen’s three identified clients suggest that the seized materials are unlikely to contain voluminous privileged documents, further supporting the importance of efficiency here,” prosecutors wrote.
Additionally, Trump admitted that Michael Cohen was working on his behalf regarding the Stormy Daniels issues and Trump has long been aware of that fact. That changes Trump’s story that he told on Air Force One a few weeks ago when he claimed he had no idea about any payment or agreement. It also undercuts Cohen’s story that he was acting on his own. At best, the two have been trying to stay ambiguous about Trump’s knowledge of any deal with Daniels, but Trump blew the doors off of that idea during the interview.
Daniels’ lawyer, Michael Avenatti, quickly picked up on the Trump disclosure.
Trump’s rambling continues to make his lawyers’ lives more difficult. Every public statement can be used against him in court filings and arguments, ultimately leading to more exposure for him and his team.
463 days in, 999 to go
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