WEBVTT - Speculation Grows Over Michael Cohen’s Cooperation 0:00:03.480 --> 0:00:07.560 Welcome to the Bloomberg Law Podcast. I'm June Grosso. Every 0:00:07.640 --> 0:00:10.440 day we bring you insight and analysis into the most 0:00:10.480 --> 0:00:13.399 important legal news of the day. You can find more 0:00:13.480 --> 0:00:18.040 episodes of the Bloomberg Law Podcast on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud 0:00:18.320 --> 0:00:22.360 and on Bloomberg dot com Slash Podcasts. In a long 0:00:22.400 --> 0:00:25.920 and wide ranging interview with Fox News yesterday, President Trump 0:00:25.920 --> 0:00:29.840 spoke about his embattled personal attorney, Michael Cohen, saying Cohen 0:00:30.000 --> 0:00:32.879 only handled a small amount of his legal business. He 0:00:33.000 --> 0:00:37.360 represents me, like with this crazy Stormy Daniels deal. He 0:00:37.479 --> 0:00:40.920 represented me, and you know, from what I see, he 0:00:41.000 --> 0:00:44.080 did absolutely nothing wrong if there were no campaign fund 0:00:44.560 --> 0:00:47.760 joining us as former federal prosecutor Jeffrey Kramer, the managing 0:00:47.760 --> 0:00:51.560 director of the Berkeley Research Group jeff The speculation about 0:00:51.600 --> 0:00:55.040 whether Cohen will cooperate seemed to reach a fever pitch 0:00:55.120 --> 0:00:58.600 after Trump's interview yesterday, where he tried to distance himself 0:00:58.600 --> 0:01:01.560 from Cohen, saying he only did a tiny, tiny, little 0:01:01.600 --> 0:01:05.160 fraction of his legal work. If Cohen were your client, 0:01:05.200 --> 0:01:08.000 would you be knocking on the Special Council's door door 0:01:08.080 --> 0:01:11.200 to make a deal. You know? It all, Uh, it 0:01:11.200 --> 0:01:14.720 all depends on how big a hammer. Uh. The now 0:01:14.800 --> 0:01:18.160 the Southern District, and maybe the special prosecutor has if 0:01:18.200 --> 0:01:22.720 it's just the hundred thirty thousand campaign finance violation, and 0:01:22.760 --> 0:01:26.160 maybe there's a banking allegation there as well. Uh. I say, 0:01:26.200 --> 0:01:28.080 just because in the scheme of things, that's not much, 0:01:28.600 --> 0:01:32.320 he might not be looking at at very much jail time. However, 0:01:32.640 --> 0:01:36.399 if they start getting into other transactions, uh and possible 0:01:36.440 --> 0:01:40.480 other frauds, then the impetus to cooperate is going to 0:01:40.600 --> 0:01:43.319 be strong. But you have to keep in mind that 0:01:43.360 --> 0:01:46.399 if Mr Kohn does cooperate, the chances of a pardon 0:01:46.440 --> 0:01:48.600 obviously goes out the door. And at the end of 0:01:48.640 --> 0:01:50.680 the day, he's going to be a disbarred lawyer looking 0:01:50.680 --> 0:01:54.040 for work and he may want to favor from the president. Now, 0:01:54.120 --> 0:01:56.280 within just a couple of hours after that phone called 0:01:56.280 --> 0:01:59.920 a Fox, attorneys were already drafting documents that were getting 0:02:00.000 --> 0:02:02.560 had to send things to court. Can you engauge just 0:02:02.720 --> 0:02:05.520 how damaging or not that phone call might have been 0:02:05.560 --> 0:02:09.040 for the president or from Michael Cohen. Well, certainly got 0:02:09.120 --> 0:02:11.680 rid of one check box that they have to do, 0:02:11.760 --> 0:02:14.800 which is that Cohen was representing the president in the 0:02:14.840 --> 0:02:19.239 story of McDaniel and story daniels transaction. Not that that's shocking. 0:02:19.240 --> 0:02:22.400 Obviously Cohn wasn't doing it for himself, but that just 0:02:22.520 --> 0:02:24.600 gets that out of the out of the gate to 0:02:24.639 --> 0:02:27.040 begin with. So now we're left with two things. One 0:02:28.000 --> 0:02:30.720 either the president knew about the payment, in which case 0:02:30.720 --> 0:02:34.359 it could be a campaign violation, or two that con 0:02:34.520 --> 0:02:37.400 did it on his own with his own money without 0:02:37.480 --> 0:02:41.600 reimbursement from the president. I think it's doubtful it's number two, 0:02:41.639 --> 0:02:43.400 since I don't know many attorneys who are going to 0:02:43.560 --> 0:02:45.760 front a hundred and thirty thousand dollars with their client 0:02:45.840 --> 0:02:48.680 and not getting paid. That seems like it would be 0:02:48.720 --> 0:02:52.320 something that would be rather easy to prove, or am 0:02:52.360 --> 0:02:55.880 I wrong? You know what, with this set of prosecutors, 0:02:56.000 --> 0:02:57.680 it probably is. I mean, it's not going to be 0:02:57.720 --> 0:03:00.480 a check from the President's organization for a hundred third thousand, 0:03:01.240 --> 0:03:05.000 but it could easily be buried in UH an invoice 0:03:05.040 --> 0:03:08.639 from Mr Cohen to the Trump Organization for legal services. 0:03:08.680 --> 0:03:10.280 That may be a little harder. You know, is there 0:03:10.280 --> 0:03:13.360 an extra hundred and thirty thousand dollars for research or 0:03:13.360 --> 0:03:17.040 for handling different cases? That's a little harder to dissect. Um, 0:03:17.120 --> 0:03:19.880 but we're still left with the I think a reasonable 0:03:20.200 --> 0:03:23.560 uh statement is is that again, no lawyer fronts that 0:03:23.680 --> 0:03:26.360 kind of money without getting reimbursed. It's just it makes 0:03:26.360 --> 0:03:30.679 no sense. Before all of this happened, I had never 0:03:30.760 --> 0:03:34.520 heard of a special Master before. Uh. I love the 0:03:34.520 --> 0:03:37.760 title of it. It sounds like a special rank, maybe 0:03:37.840 --> 0:03:40.480 in the Navy or something. But the judge who has 0:03:40.640 --> 0:03:43.800 chosen has been chosen to be that special master. Um 0:03:43.960 --> 0:03:46.520 is Barbara Jones. And her reputation is that she cut 0:03:46.520 --> 0:03:49.120 her teeth as a mob prosecutor. Does that tell you 0:03:49.200 --> 0:03:53.320 anything or is that just coincidence? Uh? No, that's coincidence. Uh. 0:03:53.680 --> 0:03:58.480 Barbara Jones, former prosecutor and federal judge. Uh So, when 0:03:58.480 --> 0:04:01.120 you're a prosecutor in New York City, the chances you're 0:04:01.120 --> 0:04:04.040 gonna do some organized crime cases are pretty good. Um. 0:04:04.640 --> 0:04:09.680 Barbara's is a very well respected practitioner. Uh So, I 0:04:09.720 --> 0:04:12.080 think both sides can be comfortable that she's gonna call 0:04:12.160 --> 0:04:15.840 balls and strikes well. Jeff Stormy, Daniel's lawyer, asked to 0:04:15.880 --> 0:04:18.880 be allowed to join the case because of evidence that 0:04:18.960 --> 0:04:22.200 was seized from the raid on Cohen's office. Should he 0:04:22.240 --> 0:04:25.000 be allowed to join the case? Uh, well, it's not 0:04:25.040 --> 0:04:27.240 surprising he's trying to get some at least a seat 0:04:27.240 --> 0:04:29.159 at the table to see what's going on. I'm not 0:04:29.200 --> 0:04:32.120 sure if he has any standing or not. And and 0:04:32.320 --> 0:04:36.039 the judge, Kimball would who's certainly handled her fair share 0:04:36.040 --> 0:04:39.839 of high profile matters, is being very careful, not surprisingly 0:04:39.839 --> 0:04:43.360 and circumspect in this. So uh, it's so far it 0:04:43.400 --> 0:04:46.920 doesn't play out anyway. I'm not sure if again he 0:04:46.960 --> 0:04:50.200 has standing at this point. Uh, it depends on what 0:04:50.440 --> 0:04:52.919 documents are in there. But at least he's he's putting 0:04:52.920 --> 0:04:55.680 a pin uh in the dark board just to to 0:04:55.680 --> 0:04:58.480 to set his place there just in case. What is 0:04:58.520 --> 0:05:01.240 the process from here on out? There seem to be 0:05:01.279 --> 0:05:05.159 so many different layers and so many different strings going 0:05:05.200 --> 0:05:08.760 on to different cases and different um civil suits. It 0:05:08.839 --> 0:05:11.440 all starts to get tangled up if you cannot keep 0:05:11.480 --> 0:05:14.520 track of it very clearly. So what is the process now? 0:05:14.600 --> 0:05:18.560 Walk us through? Yeah, it is very convoluted. You know 0:05:18.920 --> 0:05:21.680 a lot of clowns under the circus tent right now. Um, 0:05:21.800 --> 0:05:26.039 so you have uh Trump's attorneys who wanted to and 0:05:26.080 --> 0:05:28.520 the judge allow them to take a look at what's 0:05:28.560 --> 0:05:30.240 there so they can take a first pass at what 0:05:30.360 --> 0:05:34.960 they think might be privileged UM, and the prosecutors Southern 0:05:34.960 --> 0:05:37.920 District has said they would have a taint team UM 0:05:38.120 --> 0:05:41.480 to go through the items. But what's going to happen 0:05:42.160 --> 0:05:45.000 is that cons attorneys will look at it. Trump's attorneys 0:05:45.000 --> 0:05:47.520 will look at it. Prosecutors obviously know what they have 0:05:47.640 --> 0:05:51.680 for the most part um. But then uh, judge Judge 0:05:51.760 --> 0:05:54.800 or Judge Jones, Jones will look at it and decide 0:05:54.800 --> 0:05:57.840 what is privileged and what is not and then give 0:05:57.880 --> 0:06:01.040 it to the Southern District prosecute or so in a 0:06:01.120 --> 0:06:04.440 normal case, not many normal things here, there would be 0:06:04.440 --> 0:06:08.280 what's called a paint team, prosecutors and agents not associated 0:06:08.320 --> 0:06:11.880 with the case in chief reviewing items. The judges kind 0:06:11.880 --> 0:06:14.080 of removed that from the prosecutors, and I'm going to 0:06:14.160 --> 0:06:17.359 have Barbara Jones look at it and then decide what 0:06:17.560 --> 0:06:21.200 prosecutors can look at and what they cannot. So, Jeff 0:06:21.600 --> 0:06:26.000 during that interview yesterday on Fox Trump hinted that he 0:06:26.080 --> 0:06:30.400 may intervene in the Justice Department's Russia investigation, which he 0:06:30.480 --> 0:06:33.800 has hinted at before. But did that that that's to 0:06:33.839 --> 0:06:35.720 send you any you know, do you have any more 0:06:35.760 --> 0:06:40.000 additional concerns because of this Cone probe that he might 0:06:40.040 --> 0:06:45.159 do that. You know what, I think any anyone who's 0:06:45.200 --> 0:06:47.400 been involved in the system, and any former prosecutor, that's 0:06:47.400 --> 0:06:49.960 what said a chill down their spine when the President 0:06:50.040 --> 0:06:52.159 United States that they're going to take over parts of 0:06:52.160 --> 0:06:55.200 the Justice Department. And if it came from any other president, 0:06:55.320 --> 0:06:58.960 I think be front page news. But because this president 0:06:59.000 --> 0:07:02.159 is is somewhat free his language and probably doesn't mean 0:07:02.720 --> 0:07:05.520 eight tenths of what he says, you take it with 0:07:05.560 --> 0:07:07.360 a grain assault. Like I said, if it had been 0:07:07.400 --> 0:07:10.880 any other president in our lifetime that made that statement, 0:07:10.960 --> 0:07:14.440 it would be shocking. That bar of shocking is it's 0:07:14.440 --> 0:07:17.480 pretty far right, it's pretty high right now. So is 0:07:17.520 --> 0:07:19.760 he going to take over the Justice Department? No? Is 0:07:19.760 --> 0:07:23.640 he just you know, pontificating that thirty minute rant. Absolutely, 0:07:24.400 --> 0:07:29.000 and you'll be aware that today he said again during 0:07:29.040 --> 0:07:32.800 his meeting with Angela Merkel, referring to that committee report. 0:07:32.960 --> 0:07:37.160 Again he said, no collusion, no collusion. Thank you. Jeff Kramer, 0:07:37.280 --> 0:07:40.200 as always, he's the managing director of the Berkeley Research 0:07:40.240 --> 0:07:48.320 Group and a former Dead World prosecutor. Speaking at an 0:07:48.360 --> 0:07:52.920 infrastructure event in Richfield, Ohio, last month, President Trump thanked 0:07:53.000 --> 0:07:57.040 President Obama for leaving so many judicial posts open for 0:07:57.160 --> 0:08:01.480 the Trump administration to fill. We were left judges. They're 0:08:01.520 --> 0:08:06.040 the ones that judge on your disputes. They judge on 0:08:06.280 --> 0:08:09.160 what's fair, on the environment, and what's not fair, where 0:08:09.200 --> 0:08:12.080 they're going to take your farms and factories away and 0:08:12.120 --> 0:08:16.840 where they're not. Amazing, it was the gift kind of 0:08:17.040 --> 0:08:20.600 despite congressional gridlock, President Trump and Mitch McConnell's seeing some 0:08:20.800 --> 0:08:25.120 success confirming federal court nominees, filling the US judiciary with 0:08:25.400 --> 0:08:28.640 young conservatives who can actually shape American law for generations 0:08:28.680 --> 0:08:31.920 to come. Laura lit Van covers Congress for Bloomberg News, 0:08:32.120 --> 0:08:33.840 and she joins us now to clear a few things 0:08:33.920 --> 0:08:36.560 up in our Bloomberg ninety nine one studios in Washington. 0:08:36.720 --> 0:08:39.120 Let's talk about first what the President did say that 0:08:39.160 --> 0:08:44.360 this was a gift, but it wasn't a gift. Actually 0:08:44.440 --> 0:08:47.920 it was something else. Well, it was a strategy really. 0:08:47.960 --> 0:08:50.960 I mean, we see in both parties in recent decades 0:08:51.160 --> 0:08:55.800 a growing determination as one presidency starts to end too 0:08:56.080 --> 0:08:58.920 if one party, the other party will hold the Senate 0:08:59.320 --> 0:09:01.720 to delay things and keep things open. So what we 0:09:01.800 --> 0:09:05.199 had happened under at the end of Obama's term was 0:09:05.280 --> 0:09:08.640 not only the Supreme Court vacancy after Justice Scalia passed 0:09:08.640 --> 0:09:11.120 away that was kept open, but also a lot of 0:09:11.120 --> 0:09:13.520 people don't realize this, but there were a hundred eight 0:09:13.600 --> 0:09:16.520 judge ships vacant when Trump came in, as partly because 0:09:16.880 --> 0:09:20.880 the Republicans in the Senate used every available opportunity to 0:09:20.880 --> 0:09:23.840 try to delay some of the Obama pics. There are 0:09:23.880 --> 0:09:28.200 only two Circuit court judges approved under President Obama's last 0:09:28.200 --> 0:09:32.760 two years and eighteen district court judges. That's a trickle, Laura. 0:09:33.000 --> 0:09:36.880 Let's talk about the judges themselves, except in a few cases. 0:09:37.200 --> 0:09:41.079 The judicial nominations contrast with some of the other nominations 0:09:41.120 --> 0:09:45.320 that Trump the Trump administration has put forward. Are the 0:09:45.400 --> 0:09:53.360 candidates being vetted or suggested by outside conservative groups, well, um, 0:09:53.480 --> 0:09:58.840 the the Federalist Society. The executive vice president of that 0:09:59.000 --> 0:10:02.920 organization is operating, as he says, separately as an advisor 0:10:03.000 --> 0:10:05.480 to the White House, because that group doesn't make recommendations, 0:10:05.480 --> 0:10:08.640 but certainly he's taking his perspective in there. And there's 0:10:08.679 --> 0:10:11.960 other people advising the White House. Um, and you know, 0:10:12.040 --> 0:10:15.160 the White House Council McGann is working closely with Mitch 0:10:15.200 --> 0:10:19.120 McConnell's office as they're ferreting through all the potential nominees 0:10:19.240 --> 0:10:22.640 very closely, looking for the right kind of conservative, originalist 0:10:22.760 --> 0:10:25.360 kind of perspective that they want to bring to the courts. Okay, 0:10:25.360 --> 0:10:27.520 so you had said that there were more than one 0:10:27.600 --> 0:10:30.400 hundred vacancies, Is that right? How many judges are we 0:10:30.440 --> 0:10:33.400 talking about and how much difference is this ultimately going 0:10:33.440 --> 0:10:37.840 to make? Well, what we're seeing so far is um 0:10:37.880 --> 0:10:40.480 you know, a great impact on the appellate courts. Fifteen 0:10:40.840 --> 0:10:45.040 circuit court judges uh have been confirmed so far this year. 0:10:45.080 --> 0:10:48.240 That's a very high level UM and we've had seventeen 0:10:48.280 --> 0:10:50.840 trial court judges of course, course that's brought onto the courts. 0:10:51.080 --> 0:10:53.640 That the appellate court number is very important because so 0:10:53.679 --> 0:10:56.040 many cases go no further than the appellate courts. We 0:10:56.040 --> 0:10:58.640 have about maybe eight cases every year decided by the 0:10:58.640 --> 0:11:02.920 Supreme Court. Last or fifty nine cases we're just decided 0:11:02.960 --> 0:11:07.080 by the thirteen appellate courts. Laura, the appellate courts are 0:11:07.360 --> 0:11:11.480 so important in in decision making because they're the last 0:11:11.480 --> 0:11:14.120 step before the Supreme Court, and so few cases get 0:11:14.160 --> 0:11:17.680 to the Supreme Court. But how close are they to 0:11:17.760 --> 0:11:21.120 actually turning those appellate courts to conservative It takes a 0:11:21.120 --> 0:11:24.800 long time, it certainly does. But that number fifteen is 0:11:24.920 --> 0:11:28.160 much better than we've seen under the last five presidents. Um, 0:11:28.280 --> 0:11:32.840 and there's more activity coming. Yesterday the President nominated eight 0:11:32.840 --> 0:11:35.800 more judges at the circuit district court level as Congress 0:11:35.880 --> 0:11:38.959 was leaving town for recess, and Mitch McConnell, the majority 0:11:39.040 --> 0:11:43.000 leader in the Senate, filed uh took steps in the 0:11:43.000 --> 0:11:46.000 process to tee up votes when the Senate comes back 0:11:46.040 --> 0:11:49.160 on six more circuit court judges. Okay, let's take a 0:11:49.160 --> 0:11:52.640 step back, take a wide broad view of this. How 0:11:52.840 --> 0:11:56.640 this ranks in terms of accomplishments of the Trump administration. 0:11:57.160 --> 0:12:00.800 How the base feels about it. Is this somethinging that 0:12:00.920 --> 0:12:03.520 they would notice, they would recognize, and that they would support. 0:12:03.559 --> 0:12:05.440 I mean, is this right up there with tax cuts. 0:12:06.160 --> 0:12:09.680 It has an even longer lasting impact potentially because so 0:12:09.720 --> 0:12:13.359 many of these judges are young in their forties and fifties, 0:12:13.760 --> 0:12:17.240 and the tax legislation it could be reversed if Democrats 0:12:17.400 --> 0:12:21.960 retake the Senate. These judges don't have lifetime appointments, and uh, 0:12:22.000 --> 0:12:24.800 you know, there's differing views about this. This is the 0:12:24.840 --> 0:12:27.880 activity has won over a lot of conservative critics of 0:12:27.920 --> 0:12:32.160 the president. Uh, the outside groups on the progressive side 0:12:32.160 --> 0:12:34.719 are deeply concerned. They say these judges could roll back 0:12:34.760 --> 0:12:38.360 civil rights protections, consumer protections, bring up much more pro 0:12:38.480 --> 0:12:44.359 business perspective to courts. Um, gay rights could be at risk. So, um, 0:12:44.400 --> 0:12:46.240 but this is a this is a big deal. This 0:12:46.320 --> 0:12:48.880 could even be bigger than the tax bill. So, Laura, 0:12:49.559 --> 0:12:53.360 look at the demographics of this and Obama tried to 0:12:53.400 --> 0:12:57.520 get diversity on the federal bench. What's happening now. Um, 0:12:57.559 --> 0:13:00.240 there's a very sharp contrast between lot Obama was doing 0:13:00.280 --> 0:13:02.760 in terms of the judges he was nominating and got through, 0:13:03.200 --> 0:13:07.440 compared to what we're seeing under Trump. For instance, under Obama, 0:13:07.559 --> 0:13:11.480 we'll take the circuit court numbers, we had about seventy 0:13:13.600 --> 0:13:16.800 I'm sorry, of the circuit court judges confirmed so far 0:13:16.880 --> 0:13:20.560 are white males under Obama was just thirty three. Obama 0:13:20.600 --> 0:13:23.360 was trying to reverse what he saw under George W. Bush, 0:13:23.360 --> 0:13:28.240 which was a sixty uh for white male judges confirmed. 0:13:28.800 --> 0:13:31.679 And so it's kind of gone back and then some Alright, 0:13:31.760 --> 0:13:35.160 Laura la Van Bloomberg News Congressional reporter a terrific story 0:13:35.240 --> 0:13:38.440 about this very issue on the Bloomberg terminal. I encouraged 0:13:38.480 --> 0:13:41.480 to check it out. Thanks so much, Laura. Thanks for 0:13:41.559 --> 0:13:44.800 listening to the Bloomberg Law podcast. You can subscribe and 0:13:44.880 --> 0:13:48.120 listen to the show on Apple podcast, SoundCloud, and on 0:13:48.200 --> 0:13:52.920 Bloomberg dot com slash podcast. I'm June Basso. This is 0:13:52.960 --> 0:13:57.120 Bloomberg Ye.