Judge Orders Government to Turn Over Material to Cohen's Legal Team; Trump Lawyer Cohen Reveals His Secret Client Sean Hannity
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: What happened tonight, a lot of it taking place right here in New York. Earlier today, Michael Cohen in court, the President's attorney shows up for hearing over material seized by the FBI also in attendance, Stormy Daniels. Mystery client revealed when force to give up the name of Michael Cohen third mystery client, lo and behold, it's Sean Hannity. And Russia about-face, Nikki Haley said new Russia sanctions would be announced today. They had not been was to hold up, importantly, the President. We begin with that hearing in New York, Brynn Gingras joins us now with latest. So talk about the judges ruling today Brynn?</s>BRYNN GINGRAS, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes Anderson, the judge basically gave every party a little bit of what they wanted without making a final ruling about those documents that received in the FBI raid of Michael Cohen's home and his office and his hotel room. Essentially, the U.S. attorney's office is now going to filter through those documents has to hand them over to Michael Cohen's attorneys and that they are told by the judge to go through them, figure out the volume of how much is protected by attorney-client privilege and then report back. They're also allowed to sit through them and give some of those documents to the Trump organization those that pertain to him. And then also the U.S. Attorney's Office, again, it can go through the documents as well to figure out how much is they believe is protected by attorney-client privilege and then all the parties are going to reconvene and that's when then judge is expected to make another ruling, the final ruling, hopefully, in this matter. Anderson.</s>COOPER: And talk about how it came about to Michael Cohen's lawyers were forced to name Sean Hannity as his client?</s>GINGRAS: Yes, you know, that was really dramatic fashion inside the courtroom, Anderson. We know the judge asked Michael Cohen's attorney to give names of his client. Then we know Trump was one those name and RNC donor was another but then there was this unnamed person and it's not like Sean Hannity's name just came out, you know, out in the open quickly. Cohen's attorney is really thought and not named him saying that it was embarrassing for this person that there was attorney client privilege that his name shouldn't be revealed even offered to give the judge a letter that was sealed in order to keep his name confidential. So they took a lot of, you know, concerns for Sean Hannity's name before the judge finally said you have to say the name in public and that's how his name came about, of course, Sean Hannity said he only, you know, counted on Michael Cohen for legal advise was never actually a client of Cohen but it certainly bags a lot of question that why so much concern with revealing his name in court today.</s>COOPER: And based on the judge heard decision today and the ruling that she's going to make about whether or not or how all this information is going to be looked at. How will the investigation move forward?</s>GINGRAS: Yes and that's the thing. That's where -- there is a lot of a win for the Cohen's attorney, you know, the whole time the U.S. attorney's office has been saying that these orders, these motions that the attorneys have been filing, they have all been stalled tactics for this major criminal investigation, right? And that where Cohen's attorney is kind of had a little bit of an edge here because it is going to take a while for the U.S. attorney to sift through documents as go and sneak a while for Cohen's attorney to sift the documents as well. And throughout this entire time before the judge makes her final ruling, the investigation cannot continue. Investigators can't look at those seized documents from the FBI raid a week ago. So, it certainly going to stall it a bit but we'll have to see how it plays forward once they all came back to court so that's next hearing.</s>COOPER: Brynn Gingras, I appreciate it. Thanks very much. Joining me now to help sort through all this is former U.S. attorney Preet Bharara, along with Jeffrey Toobin and Carrie Cordero. First of all, I mean, the investigation can go forward, they just can't use these documents that they seized from the raid, correct?</s>PREET BHARARA, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Yes. So the documents that have been seized they cannot go to take from that search for a period of time until this is all figured out by the judge. But presumably, from the information we have, there's been investigations has been going on for period of time.</s>COOPER: But they got access to his e-mails?</s>BHARARA: For months, according to representations made in court. They have been investigating Michael Cohen for months. And there are all sorts of other things they can do, they can continue to interview other witnesses, they can issue subpoenas with respect to bank documents and other materials. So all of that continues, the only thing they can't do in the immediate future is look at the take from the search.</s>COOPER: Is this, Jeff, a stalling tactic by Michael Cohen or, I mean, you know, there are real questions about what's attorney/client privilege?</s>JEFF TOOBIN, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: One of the iron laws of criminal prosecution is the defense always want to lay in the prosecution, always want to move forward quickly. This is a delay, I mean, this is -- it could be a fairly complicated process depending on how many thousand documents there are. Someone --</s>COOPER: Ten boxes, I think.</s>TOOBIN: The 10 boxes, I mean, if the judge ultimately, I mean, it might be a special master that is sort of been outside or appointed first. But ultimately, the -- some of these documents are going to have to be ruled on by the judge about whether they're covered by attorney/client privilege. I can imagine this takes a few weeks, you know, in the context of a long investigation probably doesn't make that much of a difference but prosecutors always want to get doing fast. When you search some place in particular, that's a very dramatic to step. You want to get at this stuff as quickly as possible. So to the extent there is a delay involved, that's a win for the Cohen team.</s>COPPER: Carrie, do you see this as a win for the Cohen team?</s>CARRIE CORDERO, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, I think the fact that there's a little bit of a delay and the fact that if today's reporting is that his team is going to be able to look at some of the documents to actually do their own review and then be able to come back to the judge and try to get some documents taken out as covered by attorney- client privilege then that potentially is some advantage to either him or to his client and in this case the most important one being the president. Really it's part of this question is going to come down to what his attorney-client relationships are and with respect to the Sean Hannity issue in particular it's really just unclear there is any kind of legal representation there at all. Hannity tweeted today that Michael Cohen never represented me in a matter. And so that indicates to me that there actually is no representation, there is no attorney-client relationship.</s>TOOBIN: I'm sorry, Hannity also talked on the radio about his relationship with Michael Cohen. And the way he described it is like we short of shoot the breeze about real estate sometimes. That's not an attorney client relationship. There has to be some sort of formal agreement. You don't have to be paid, pro bono can be an attorney violation.</s>COOPER: Any conversations with the attorney where you're saying hey, you know, I'm thinking about buying a place in Boca.</s>TOOBIN: Yes or even, you know, do you know anything of Florida law? I mean, you know, cocktail party conversations with attorneys are not attorney-client privilege. There has to be some sort of agreement that you are representing this person and from the description that Hannity gave at least on the radio, it sounded like there is no attorney-client relationship which --</s>COOPER: Although --</s>TOOBIN: -- which is peculiar. I don't know why Cohen would mention it in that case.</s>COOPER: Well, what's odd is that Sean Hannity and his multiple descriptions of this, seem to be having it both ways. On the one hand he said, you know, never paid, never billed. Certainly, he certainly never mentioned it on his show, you know, in the multiple times that that Michael Cohen appeared. And yet he said he did think it was confidential?</s>BHARARA: Yes, he's finding having it both ways because he does not want the nature of his conversations to be revealed but he also wants to make it seem like he does not have much of a relationship with Michael Cohen because given the trouble that Michael Cohen is in is not a great association to have had. The other thing I wanted to point out was I think going back to the proceeding from today, I think it's largely a win for the government, my old office. Because remember, the reason they did the search was they wanted to have the first crack at making a determination about what is privilege and what is not privilege. So when the judge today decided that there's going to be a process, it will take some period of time and did not allow the defense to say we want the first crack at looking at what should be turned over and what should not be turned over. The government won because you want to make sure that some independent party maybe a special master at some point or the U.S. Attorney's Office is going to make sure that nothing falls through the cracks. And that's the most important thing that I think for purposes of thinking about the proceeding today.</s>COOPER: Was there any chance that the judge would have said, sure you all who represent the President and Michael Cohen, you can determine what's privilege and what's not?</s>TOOBIN: No.</s>BHARARA: I don't think so.</s>TOOBIN: That would never --</s>BHARARA: But that was the initial request.</s>TOOBIN: Right.</s>BHARAR: The initial request was, you know, and the initial criticism with the government was you should have just issued a subpoena and from my perspective as a lawyer and someone who used to run that office, the fact that the first request by the defense was, you know, we want to have the first crack and we'll tell the government what in our mind is privilege and what is not shows you why the government want to seek a search warrant in the first place because the person who should be assessing that should be someone who's not the person who is being searched.</s>CORDERO: Part of what's getting lost in this I think a little bit Anderson, is that this is not the first time that a federal prosecutor's office, that the southern district of New York I'm sure has been involved in executing a search warrant against an attorney. It's not the most common thing in the world and this is a high profile case but there are procedures for how this happens. Normally there would be a government privilege team in this case because if the judge decides in her discretion that there should be a special master, somebody even more neutral to protect the integrity and protect any kind of perception of bias, then maybe she'll go in that direction. But it's not like it is the first time something like this has ever happened and it's completely novel in legal practice.</s>COOPER: If the President was to pardon Michael Cohen, obviously that's not a federal charges -- you know, a lot of people are saying that well the state could pick up the case if there is a case against Michael Cohen if it's bank fraud or if it's wire fraud. Is -- are you all confident of that?</s>TOOBIN: Not a bit. I think this mythology surrounding like the oldest state can just take it over. The federal government has so much more power to prosecute, particularly in New York. I mean the attorney general of New York barely prosecutes any criminal cases at all. The idea that this could just totally be picked up by the Eric Schneiderman, who's the attorney general is not because he's doing a bad job, it is just federal prosecutors have resources and laws that are not comparable to the state.</s>BHARARA: It depends where the crimes are. We have no idea. A lot of things are over which local prosecutors have joint and concurrent jurisdiction with federal prosecutors. So if it's sort of kind of bank fraud, there might be state crime that's could be chargeable, and also a federal crime that could be chargeable. We just don't know. At this point, you know, I got to tell you, I am not sure exactly what crimes are being examined. The brief that my old office put into court has various sections redacted. And the reduction to me, the most interesting part of the submission because it tells you the kinds of in fractions that they are looking at.</s>COOPER: And you could read through those?</s>BHARARA: Well, I looked carefully and I could not read those.</s>TOOBIN: They gotten better of the black out stuff.</s>COOPER: Does it surprise you that -- I mean, Jeff, did that Sean Hannity would any point in this -- I think some 16 times that we have counted that Michael Cohen have been on his broadcast since Donald Trump announced ever say -- oh, by the way, I consult with this person.</s>TOOBIN: By the way, he represents me as well.</s>BHARARA: No. He does not represent me.</s>TOOBIN: No. It's -- but I mean, what makes it peculiar and maybe Hannity was not being fully honest, I mean what he described as the relationship was not an attorney/client relationship. I mean, of course, if he really was being represented by Michael Cohen as a matter of journalist ethics, he should have reported it. But the way he described it, it was just like, well, he's sort of friendly with me and we are all friendly with some people we cover. That I am not sure has to be disclosed. But if he did actually represent him as a lawyer, of course, that should have been --</s>BHARARA: But in a fraud high stakes, big deal proceedings that occurred today in court when there is a weekend to think about it and the judge wanted to know who Michael Cohen's clients were and he only had three. The representative from Michael Cohen certainly thought that he had to name Sean Hannity as a client so there is a disconnect --</s>TOOBIN: A total disconnect.</s>COOPER: Thank you very much. Carrie Cordero, Jeff Toobin, and Preet Bharara. Just ahead more on Hannity's reaction today's revelation and his client Michael Cohen. And later the former FBI Director James Comey says the President is morally unfit for office. Republicans law makers' reaction to that bomb shell interview is coming up.