Stormy daniels, those koch conversations are not covered by Attorney Client privilege and citing the president s own words said on april 1st when he exclaimed to know nothing about the payment. Did you know about the 130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels . [ inaudible ]. Why did Michael Cohen make this you have to ask Michael Cohen. Mikes my attorney and youll have to ask him. And do you know where he got the money to make that payment . I dont know. Lets go right to cnn in new york. Shim own, were hearing Michael Cohen is not cooperating and so what are prosecutors saying. Reporter that is right. None of the the what the prosecutors are saying is not good for the president or his personal attorney Michael Cohen and they have revealed he is under criminal investigation. And they have basically been investigating him for quite sometime, it appears. Including conducting covert surveillance on him where they were able to obtain some emails that showed he had basically not been doing any kind of legal work, they also explained the reason perhaps as to why they needed to go in, so aggressively with a search warrant, was because they were concerned he was going to destroy evidence and evidence would be destroyed and they would not be able to other wise have access to so that is why they went in the way they went in. Weve also learned here in court that the defense here, his attorneys Michael Cohens attorneys, the judge asked them to provide a list of who his other clients are and so far they have not been able to do so. And that is why were supposed to be back in court now. Because a judge is basically asking Michael Cohen, who are u your other clients beside the president and the attorneys have not been able to answer that. Thank you so much. Lets bring in the panel. And lets get Quick Reaction off the bat. Michael cohen under criminal investigation and acknowledgment from the Justice Department and what is your response. Quick response. The president is making this about Robert Mueller. And as we move along and see a series of indictments in two separate investigations, indictments of flynn and papadapoulos and Paul Manafort and gates and some of whom are cooperating. The number of interviewees giving them a picture and the number of email and in this case Michael Cohen has voice mail and he recorded over time and it is not the spite of Robert Mueller. When this goes public, there is going to be a spiderweb of information of People Associated with the president who are speaking themselves. I think that is what the American People will see eventually. And we know hes under a investigation, Michael Cohen and the file redacts what crimes hes being investigated for, based on your experience as a prosecutor and what we know, what do you think . Is it simply a federal election law. No. And it is more than that. And were far past the announcement last week on target versus subject and now you see what it looks like in a full throated investigation and you have a target and the idea of the redactions, they are not wanting to tip their hand to the rest of the public. There are probably people out there who we dont know will be witnesses and maybe cooperating in testimony and may be subject or targets in this case and theyre not going to show their hands. Much like they did in the george vand der swan hearing where they said we wont show everything here and the courts allowing them to do so which gives further credence that this is a independent judge not a westchester hunt and saying there is far more to the issue than Campaign Finance violation. And they had his hotel, safety deputy box and Electronic Devices and cohen recorded conversations and what are you looking to drop next. Who else is associated with cohen and involved in a criminal investigation and they start talk. Cohen isnt cooperating now. Lets see what happens when he sees the extent of the criminal charges he will say i have a president and the president just put me in front of a truck, im going to start talking. Ill see who else is implicated and whether they start talking. And cohen is not talking. Government did the raid because they are concerned he was going to delete his records. What does that say to snu. That says that they do not trust that he is ever been forthcoming or that he would have been in the future. And there was an urgent need for them to execute it in this way. And noknock announcement warrant was one thing this ch happened in the Paul Manafort case. This is is of all of the date and and telephone and computers and somebody who never had any intention of cooperating and a judge believed that. And the most important thing to think of here, talking about Attorney Client, they need to have proof he was his attorney and if that is not the case and the court never had to respect the Attorney Client privilege, the idea of an urgent need to go in before anything was destroyed becomes all the more paramount. And phil, just to that point, the filing said, quote, cohen is in fact performing little to no legal work and that zero emails were exchanged with President Trump, if they are trying to make the argument the legal argument that cohen is not his lawyer, cohen is his fixer, does that mean that the Attorney Client privilege wouldnt hold. And over the past hour, people are talking about the fact and think it is in the filing that the president came out as you saw on air force one and said, hey, i dont know anything about this payment. How can it be how could there be a relationship with your client in this case donald trump about a payment, when the president said he didnt know about the payment. So one, you have somebody not doing legal work, you have somebody apparently not communicating with the president about the case, how can you claim privileged conversation when there werent any conversations and they werent legal in nature . What they are communicating about, let me bring in breaking news just in this second. The New York Times reporting that President Trump called Michael Cohen today to check in. And we just learned that from the New York Times. So there has been at least some communication if President Trump called Michael Cohen. You dont think do i take it, laura, that Attorney Client privilege applies here. It never applied to every single occasion. Im an attorney and we are talking and it is not about legal advice and it doesnt shield from being disclosed from everyone else. You have to have an attorneyclient relationship meaning and when we communicate it is between us and attorneyclient and the subject matter is in furtherance of legal advice, not business or ray donovanesque fixing or discussion about taxi medallions but it has to be that. But the interesting thing is that the contract claim that is before Michael Avenatti and Stormy Daniels will whether he knew about it or not would not be as impacted by the discussion of the president on air force one saying he didnt know about it. They could still have a party of a third Party Relationship and it is information whether this could be called privileged and that is never going to be the case. And does the fact that the president talked to Michael Cohen today and called him today, does that complicate this at aum. It is very nice of him and special to check in. Maybe he gave him a snack at some point later on but it doesnt change or help his case to say that we have a attorneyclient relationship and you have to go back in time and say we want to have this conversation. And a lot is made about the audio recordings. Which in new york you can do, by the one Party Consent and the other person didnt have to know, but remember those conversations as well had to be privileged for him to say it has to be protected. And if somebody else is involved, none of it passed muster. And is it does matter if Michael Cohen is or was his attorney, the white house was asked this question today just a few minutes ago, take a listen to White House Press secretary sara sanders on the very basic question, is Michael Cohen still President Trumps attorney. I know that the president is working with him as a personal attorney. Beyond that i dont have anything else to add. About the development how could there not be an answer to that question . That seems basic. Let me answer it for you or play sara sanders. How could you remain the personal lawyer for the president of the United States when you are under criminal investigation for the president of the United States. And i cannot imagine over the course of the next few days somebody will ask and say this guy still represents us in a case where he is under criminal investigation. How do you have a privileged conversation with him . I want to talk about that because trumps lawyer walked into the courtroom today and it wasnt Michael Cohen when he argued on behalf of the prij of privilege of the United States and why he didnt want information disclosed. If he didnt have an indication of who is taking sides, Michael Cohen wasnt saying im the president s lawyer. How much do you think this case is being run by the Southern District of new york, the u. S. Attorneys office. Not by Robert Mueller and the russia investigation. But how much do you think it might be rooted in in addition to whatever crimes they think Michael Cohen may have committed, trying to get him to flip as part of this larger Mueller Investigation . I think zero. Zero . You dont think it has anything to do with it . I do not. There is one issue, whether money that investigators find in this case that relates to what mueller finds, there is what is call taint team, a clean team that looks at the information for cohen to weed out stuff not relevant to the case. They hand it over to separate veef investigators and if those investigators for new york and see something relevant to mueller, they will push it back and then hand it over to the department of justice and this is interesting and get new york to investigate because this is not related to weird hollywood conspiracy that said he want cohen to flip. At the same time, cohen as his client he only has one client, donald trump so if he committed crimes in the service of his client, there are at least questions for the president from the Southern District of new york. Of course. Ethically speaking youll have questions about to what extent Michael Cohen involved or implicated or attempted to implicate the president. Hes taking a ten foot pole approach and Michael Cohen as you saw on air force one, i dont know what he does and hes doing his own thing and he dont want to be asked about it, ask Michael Cohen and when the courts ask him, it is interesting to see what he said. And the idea of it being separate, i dont think i could have that centrtainty, but thiss an exercise in futility given his allegiance and the discussions. And remember with Scooter Libby. We already know the president has pardoning powers an talking on the phone today, maybe that pillow talk involved the future as well. Some people wondering and speculates if the president s pardon of Scooter Libby and well get into that later in the show if that was a signal to people, im willing to use my pardon power. There are two pieces. Undermine the investigation and if there are indictments saying i told it was a witch hunt and then the second shoe drops, if you are accused as lying, ill pardon you. I think the two go together. Stick around. We have more to talk about. The white house just responded to former fbi director james comey tellall book. You thought calling him a slime ball was bad, listen to the names were used at the white house podium. Stay with us. Announcer the lead by jake tapper is brought to you by hi leaving a career to follow a calling takes courage. A personalized Financial Strategy can give you confidence to take the next step. Hi guys aw yeah see how access to j. P. Morgan investment expertise can help you. Chase. Make more of whats yours. Chase. Was a success for lastchoicehotels. Comign badda book. Badda boom. This year, were taking it up a notch. So in this commercial we see two travelers at a comfort inn with a glow around them, so people watching will be like, wow, maybe ill glow too if i book direct at choicehotels. Com. Who glows . Just say, badda book. Badda boom. Nobody glows. He gets it. Always the lowest price, guaranteed. Book now at choicehotels. Com whats going on . Oh hey thats it . Yeah. Everybody two seconds dear sebastian, after careful consideration of your application, it is with great pleasure that we offer our congratulations on your acceptance. Through the Tuition Assistance program, every day mcdonalds helps more people go to college. Its part of our commitment to being americas best first job. Were back with more breaking news. President trump on a twitter tirade moments ago slamming andrew mccabe, the recently fired fbi deputy director, quote, the department of justice just issued the mccabe report which is a total disaster. He lied, lied, lied, all caps and mccabe was controls by comey and made up by a den of thieves and low lives. That is a quote by the tweet. That is word for word. I didnt make that up. And right before that the white house went all in attacking james comey and his new bombshell book. One of president s greatest achievements will go down as firing director james comey. Interestingly enough, steve bannon called it one of the biggest political mistakes in modern history. Lets bring in pamela brown at the white house and the president setting the tone this morning, calling comey, a quote, leaker and a hire and untruthful slam ball, again that is a cute. The white house is not letting up on this character attack against comey. Absolutely not. And after staying quiet last night, today the white house has launched a fullthroated attack on fired fbi director james comey as explosive passages from his forthcoming tellall book hit the media. The president as you pointed out lashed out on twitter calling him a liar and leaker and saying he leaked classified information. And the president referring to the four memos that Comey Told Congress he gave to a friend about his interactions with the president , that was then passed on to New York Times reporter and comey has maintained there was no classified information but today at the press briefing, sara sanders came out doubling down on the criticism of comey, echoing what we heard from the president. Here is what she said. The American People see right through the blatant lies of a self admitted leaker. This is nothing more than a poorly executed p. R. Stunt by comey to rehabilitate his tattered rep tapgs and enrich his bank account by a book that belongs in the bargin bin and instead of a dedicated servant in the pursuit of justice like so many other colleagues at the fbi, comey will be forever known as a disgraced partisan hack that broke his trust with the president of the United States. And when asked if trump was concerned about what is in the book, she said not at all. But based on the president s tweets this morning, it is clearly top of mind for him. Jake. It looks like President Trump will produce another bestseller. Comeys publisher is banking on his book and printing 850,000 copies to meet preorder demands and contrast Michael Wolffs fa fire and fury doing quite well and now sara joins me now. And sara, comey is giving his critics fodder for pushback. That is right. And this is a book that is packed with substantive criticism and also some petty or swipes at the president including over his appearance and as comey is preparing to tell all, you could see the white house is casting the former fbi director as little more than a disgruntled employee. I started to tell him about the allegation was that he was involved with prostitutes in a hotel in moscow in 2013 during a visit for the Miss Universe pageant and the russians had filmed the episode and he interrupted very defensively and started talking about it do i look like a guy who needs hookers. Reporter fbi director james comey assailing President Trumps leadership style. As he describes a newly elected wor