I spoke to the CBC for this story on the raid on Michael Cohen's hotel room and office. Hope you'll check it out. cbc.ca/news/world/tru…
2/ I'd add to the background info and quotes I provided to the CBC that I disagree with Jim Trusty: if Cohen is charged with an offense, it's likely to be one in which Trump was a co-conspirator, so testifying against him would be less attorney-client than defendant/co-defendant.
3/ Trusty is correct that if Cohen isn't charged with anything, then Mueller tries to get him to testify against Trump (which isn't the situation now being contemplated) privilege is a major problem. But if the crime-fraud exception applies, it pierces attorney-client privilege.
4/ It's hard to imagine, as I think Trusty is, a situation in which Cohen is charged with crimes that (a) don't implicate Trump as a co-conspirator, and (b) are serious enough that they could convince Cohen to flip on the president. So my remark doesn't contemplate that scenario.
5/ There's another complication: it's not clear Cohen has been in an attorney-client relationship with Trump in the way we understand that relationship—especially since January 2017 (when Cohen left the Trump Org). A fixer who happens to be a lawyer is different from an attorney.
6/ For instance, was Michael Cohen offering legal services to Donald Trump when he agreed to ferry a clandestine "peace deal" (essentially, an agreement to drop all sanctions on Russia) from a Putin ally to Michael Flynn? If so, in what way is being Putin's errand-boy lawyering?
7/ Having said all this, I'll add a quote I gave to the CBC that didn't make the story (in paraphrase): Cohen has repeatedly and loudly declared his loyalty to Trump and his family—he says he considers Trump a father figure—so it may take major prison exposure to get him to flip.
