Quote:Donald Trump has never been in more trouble than right now
Paul Waldman
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"A judge has found probable cause to believe that evidence of a crime is housed in the office of Michael Cohen," McQuade told me. "They may have a goal of flipping him, but there's also evidence of a crime here."
McQuade also stressed that Mueller didn't raid Cohen's office. Instead, the Southern District of New York did. "They would have drafted the warrant, supervised the agent affidavit, presented it to the judge, and supervised the execution of it," McQuade said. "So the idea that Mueller raided Cohen is wrong."
The raid on Cohen's office and home could produce all kinds of evidence, some related to his relationship with his client, and some not. They've got files, computers, cell phones, everything. Anyone who knows Cohen knows that there is bound to be a whole lot of interesting stuff to be found.
The privileged information will then go to what's sometimes referred to as a "taint team," a group of Justice Department officials who will review it and decide whether it shows enough evidence of a crime that it falls outside attorney-client privilege.
They will then pass that information on to a judge, who could then permit it to be used by Mueller, by the U.S. Attorney's office, by the New York state attorney general, or by the Manhattan district attorney. In other words, Cohen — and by extension, Trump — now has to worry about more than just Mueller.
Now let's take a step back. One remarkable thing about the 2016 election is the way Trump's business career was given such a superficial examination by the media as a whole. Again and again, some crazy story or unusual aspect of his financial life would be the topic of one or two investigative stories, but those stories wouldn't get pick up by other outlets.
Making this more problematic, Trump isn't someone who played close to the line a time or two, or once did a shady deal. He may well be the single most corrupt major business figure in the United States of America. He ran scams like Trump University to con struggling people out of their money.
He lent his name to pyramid schemes. He bankrupted casinos and still somehow made millions while others were left holding the bag. He refused to pay vendors. He exploited foreign workers. He used illegal labor. He discriminated against African-American renters.
He violated antitrust laws. He did business with the mob and with Eastern European kleptocrats. His properties became the go-to vehicle for Russian oligarchs and mobsters to launder their money.
So it was no accident that when he ran for president, the people who joined him in his quest were also a collection of grifters, liars, and crooks — people like Paul Manafort. Those were the kind of operators Trump has attracted all his life. Honest, upright people with a deep respect for the law don't go to work for Donald Trump.
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