The court-appointed special master tasked with reviewing materials seized during FBI raids targeting Michael Cohen has reportedly completed her assessment, a major development as federal prosecutors in New York investigate whether President Trump’s former personal lawyer committed tax fraud.
Barbara Jones has deemed 2,558 items to not be privileged nor highly personal given the lawyer-client relationship that once existed between Cohen and the president, per an MSNBC report Thursday.
NEW: Special Master appointed in Michael Cohen case has completed a review of ‘privileged’ items
2,558 items deemed not privileged and not highly personal have been turned over to federal prosecutors pic.twitter.com/x69XWkOOha
— TheBeat w/Ari Melber (@TheBeatWithAri) August 9, 2018
The materials may now be used by federal prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York as they probe Cohen for possible tax fraud violations related to his taxi medallion business. More than 3.7 million items were seized in April.
The prosecutors are assessing whether Cohen underreported his income from the business in federal tax returns, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday. Authorities are also investigating if Cohen was allowed to apply for loans through Sterling National Bank without providing necessary documentation, the report said.
The FBI raided Cohen’s home, office, and hotel room in April, seeking bank and business records on Cohen’s dealings in the taxi industry, his communications with the Trump campaign, and information on payments made to women who claimed they had extramarital affairs with Trump.
Cohen’s relationship with Trump has fractured in recent weeks after it was reported that Cohen secretly recorded a conversation with Trump discussing hush money for a former Playboy model two months before the 2016 election.
Cohen is also said to be willing to tell special counsel Robert Mueller that Trump knew in advance about a controversial Trump Tower meeting in June 2016 between Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, Paul Manafort, and Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya set up after a promise of dirt on Hillary Clinton.
