Law Professors Available on FBI Raid of Office of Trump’s Personal Lawyer

CHICAGO --- FBI agents raided the office, hotel room and home of Michael Cohen, President Trump’s personal lawyer, seizing communications between the president and his lawyer. Northwestern University has two legal scholars available to weigh in.

Juliet Sorensen is director of the Bluhm Legal Clinic at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law and the Harry R. Horrow Professor in International Law. From 2003-2010, Sorensen was an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Chicago, focusing on fraud and public corruption. She can be reached at 312-503-1482 (office) or [email protected].edu.

Quote from Professor Sorensen
“The takeaway from the FBI search of Michael Cohen’s office and hotel room is limited because the application for the search warrant and accompanying affidavit remain under seal. However, two reasonable inferences are: One, that Robert Mueller referred the matter to the Southern District of New York because he believed there was probable cause that Cohen’s office and hotel room contained evidence of a federal crime, but that the federal crime was beyond the scope of Mueller’s mandate; and two that the FBI and SDNY concluded that Michael Cohen was unlikely to voluntarily turn over all relevant evidence himself, thus necessitating the application for a search warrant.”

Ron Allen is the John Henry Wigmore Professor of Law at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law and a constitutional and criminal law expert. He may be reached at 312-503-8372 (office) or [email protected].edu.