Search warrants on lawyers

There is indeed a lawyer/client privilege, but it doesn’t really apply when the lawyer is the one breaking the law.

Trump’s attorney was the subject of a search warrant last night, and Trump immediately called it a “Democratic witch hunt.”  Just to put things in perspective:

Republican Mueller, who was appointed by a Republican and approved by a Republican Congress, got a Republican FBI lawyer appointed by Trump to approve a warrant that was signed by a Republican judge.

Clearly a Democratic witch hunt.1ymb8t

But let’s discuss that warrant. Searching a lawyer’s office is much harder than searching anywhere else because of the risks of breaking into that lawyer/client privilege. Therefore, in order to get that warrant, you have these requirements (according to the Washington Post):

  1. Before obtaining a search warrant, investigators had to try to obtain the evidence in another way, such as by subpoena.
  2. The authorization for the warrant had to come from either the U.S. attorney or an assistant attorney general. (Rosenstein is deputy attorney general, a higher position than assistant attorney general.)
  3. The prosecutor had to confer with the criminal division of the department before seeking the warrant.
  4. The team conducting the search had to “employ adequate precautions” to ensure that they weren’t improperly viewing privileged communications between Cohen and his clients.
  5. The search team would have included a “privilege team,” including lawyers and agents not working the case, which would work to ensure that investigators conducting the search didn’t see privileged communications.
  6. The investigators had to develop a review process for the seized material

So here we go. Pass the popcorn.

stewart popcorn