President Trump’s personal lawyer Michael Cohen will get copies of materials seized in FBI raids last week by May 11, Manhattan federal prosecutors said Wednesday.
In a letter to Judge Kimba Wood, prosecutors said they could begin turning over materials seized from Cohen’s office, hotel and residence as part of an ongoing criminal probe on April 27.
They said they expect most of the materials seized would be shared within two weeks, with the exception of the content of some telephones, which could take longer to be extracted, possibly due to password protections.
The feds agreed to hand over the materials after Cohen complained that the FBI, at the direction of prosecutors, seized materials protected by attorney-client privilege, including work done for Trump.
Wood now must decide who gets first look at the documents to determine which ones might be privileged and therefore off limits to the feds.
The judge has said she will either leave that responsibility to prosecutors, who would appoint a “taint team” separate from the investigators to sift through the material, or an independent “special master” appointed by the court.
On Wednesday, Cohen’s team submitted their picks for “special master,” starting with Rudy Giuliani’s former criminal division chief Bart Schwartz. Also on their list is the ex-head of the New York SEC, George Canellos, who helped take down Raj Rajaratnam.
The government, in its Wednesday letter, reiterated its objection to a special master but submitted three names nonetheless. All of the names were former magistrate judges, including retired judges James Francis and Frank Maas.
The feds recommended that the next hearing on the case be held May 25.




