Speculation Grows Over Michael Cohen’s Cooperation

represents me, like with this crazy Stormy Daniels deal. He represented me, and you know, from what I see, he did absolutely nothing wrong if there were no campaign fund joining us as former federal prosecutor Jeffrey Kramer, the managing director of the Berkeley Research Group jeff The speculation about whether Cohen will cooperate seemed to reach a fever pitch after Trump's interview yesterday, where he tried to distance himself from Cohen, saying he only did a tiny, tiny, little

fraction of his legal work. If Cohen were your client, would you be knocking on the Special Council's door door to make a deal. You know? It all, Uh, it all depends on how big a hammer. Uh. The now the Southern District, and maybe the special prosecutor has if it's just the hundred thirty thousand campaign finance violation, and maybe there's a banking allegation there as well. Uh. I say, just because in the scheme of things, that's not much,

he might not be looking at at very much jail time. However, if they start getting into other transactions, uh and possible other frauds, then the impetus to cooperate is going to be strong. But you have to keep in mind that if Mr Kohn does cooperate, the chances of a pardon obviously goes out the door. And at the end of the day, he's going to be a disbarred lawyer looking

for work and he may want to favor from the president. Now, within just a couple of hours after that phone called a Fox, attorneys were already drafting documents that were getting had to send things to court. Can you engauge just how damaging or not that phone call might have been for the president or from Michael Cohen. Well, certainly got rid of one check box that they have to do, which is that Cohen was representing the president in the

story of McDaniel and story daniels transaction. Not that that's shocking. Obviously Cohn wasn't doing it for himself, but that just gets that out of the out of the gate to begin with. So now we're left with two things. One either the president knew about the payment, in which case it could be a campaign violation, or two that con did it on his own with his own money without

reimbursement from the president. I think it's doubtful it's number two, since I don't know many attorneys who are going to front a hundred and thirty thousand dollars with their client and not getting paid. That seems like it would be something that would be rather easy to prove, or am I wrong? You know what, with this set of prosecutors,

it probably is. I mean, it's not going to be a check from the President's organization for a hundred third thousand, but it could easily be buried in UH an invoice from Mr Cohen to the Trump Organization for legal services. That may be a little harder. You know, is there an extra hundred and thirty thousand dollars for research or

for handling different cases? That's a little harder to dissect. Um, but we're still left with the I think a reasonable uh statement is is that again, no lawyer fronts that kind of money without getting reimbursed. It's just it makes no sense. Before all of this happened, I had never heard of a special Master before. Uh. I love the title of it. It sounds like a special rank, maybe in the Navy or something. But the judge who has chosen has been chosen to be that special master. Um

is Barbara Jones. And her reputation is that she cut her teeth as a mob prosecutor. Does that tell you anything or is that just coincidence? Uh? No, that's coincidence. Uh. Barbara Jones, former prosecutor and federal judge. Uh So, when you're a prosecutor in New York City, the chances you're gonna do some organized crime cases are pretty good. Um. Barbara's is a very well respected practitioner. Uh So, I think both sides can be comfortable that she's gonna call

balls and strikes well. Jeff Stormy, Daniel's lawyer, asked to be allowed to join the case because of evidence that was seized from the raid on Cohen's office. Should he be allowed to join the case? Uh, well, it's not surprising he's trying to get some at least a seat at the table to see what's going on. I'm not sure if he has any standing or not. And and the judge, Kimball would who's certainly handled her fair share of high profile matters, is being very careful, not surprisingly

and circumspect in this. So uh, it's so far it doesn't play out anyway. I'm not sure if again he has standing at this point. Uh, it depends on what documents are in there. But at least he's he's putting a pin uh in the dark board just to to to set his place there just in case. What is the process from here on out? There seem to be so many different layers and so many different strings going on to different cases and different um civil suits. It all starts to get tangled up if you cannot keep

track of it very clearly. So what is the process now? Walk us through? Yeah, it is very convoluted. You know a lot of clowns under the circus tent right now. Um, so you have uh Trump's attorneys who wanted to and the judge allow them to take a look at what's there so they can take a first pass at what they think might be privileged UM, and the prosecutors Southern District has said they would have a taint team UM to go through the items. But what's going to happen

is that cons attorneys will look at it. Trump's attorneys will look at it. Prosecutors obviously know what they have for the most part um. But then uh, judge Judge or Judge Jones, Jones will look at it and decide what is privileged and what is not and then give it to the Southern District prosecute or so in a normal case, not many normal things here, there would be what's called a paint team, prosecutors and agents not associated

with the case in chief reviewing items. The judges kind of removed that from the prosecutors, and I'm going to have Barbara Jones look at it and then decide what prosecutors can look at and what they cannot. So, Jeff during that interview yesterday on Fox Trump hinted that he may intervene in the Justice Department's Russia investigation, which he

has hinted at before. But did that that that's to send you any you know, do you have any more additional concerns because of this Cone probe that he might do that. You know what, I think any anyone who's been involved in the system, and any former prosecutor, that's what said a chill down their spine when the President United States that they're going to take over parts of the Justice Department. And if it came from any other president,

I think be front page news. But because this president is is somewhat free his language and probably doesn't mean eight tenths of what he says, you take it with a grain assault. Like I said, if it had been any other president in our lifetime that made that statement, it would be shocking. That bar of shocking is it's pretty far right, it's pretty high right now. So is he going to take over the Justice Department? No? Is

he just you know, pontificating that thirty minute rant. Absolutely, and you'll be aware that today he said again during his meeting with Angela Merkel, referring to that committee report. Again he said, no collusion, no collusion. Thank you. Jeff Kramer, as always, he's the managing director of the Berkeley Research

Group and a former Dead World prosecutor. Speaking at an infrastructure event in Richfield, Ohio, last month, President Trump thanked President Obama for leaving so many judicial posts open for the Trump administration to fill. We were left judges. They're the ones that judge on your disputes. They judge on what's fair, on the environment, and what's not fair, where they're going to take your farms and factories away and

where they're not. Amazing, it was the gift kind of despite congressional gridlock, President Trump and Mitch McConnell's seeing some success confirming federal court nominees, filling the US judiciary with young conservatives who can actually shape American law for generations to come. Laura lit Van covers Congress for Bloomberg News, and she joins us now to clear a few things up in our Bloomberg ninety nine one studios in Washington. Let's talk about first what the President did say that

this was a gift, but it wasn't a gift. Actually it was something else. Well, it was a strategy really. I mean, we see in both parties in recent decades a growing determination as one presidency starts to end too if one party, the other party will hold the Senate

to delay things and keep things open. So what we had happened under at the end of Obama's term was not only the Supreme Court vacancy after Justice Scalia passed away that was kept open, but also a lot of people don't realize this, but there were a hundred eight judge ships vacant when Trump came in, as partly because the Republicans in the Senate used every available opportunity to try to delay some of the Obama pics. There are only two Circuit court judges approved under President Obama's last

two years and eighteen district court judges. That's a trickle, Laura. Let's talk about the judges themselves, except in a few cases. The judicial nominations contrast with some of the other nominations that Trump the Trump administration has put forward. Are the candidates being vetted or suggested by outside conservative groups, well, um,

the the Federalist Society. The executive vice president of that organization is operating, as he says, separately as an advisor to the White House, because that group doesn't make recommendations, but certainly he's taking his perspective in there. And there's

other people advising the White House. Um, and you know, the White House Council McGann is working closely with Mitch McConnell's office as they're ferreting through all the potential nominees very closely, looking for the right kind of conservative, originalist kind of perspective that they want to bring to the courts. Okay, so you had said that there were more than one hundred vacancies, Is that right? How many judges are we talking about and how much difference is this ultimately going

to make? Well, what we're seeing so far is um you know, a great impact on the appellate courts. Fifteen circuit court judges uh have been confirmed so far this year. That's a very high level UM and we've had seventeen trial court judges of course, course that's brought onto the courts. That the appellate court number is very important because so many cases go no further than the appellate courts. We have about maybe eight cases every year decided by the

Supreme Court. Last or fifty nine cases we're just decided by the thirteen appellate courts. Laura, the appellate courts are so important in in decision making because they're the last step before the Supreme Court, and so few cases get to the Supreme Court. But how close are they to actually turning those appellate courts to conservative It takes a long time, it certainly does. But that number fifteen is much better than we've seen under the last five presidents. Um,

and there's more activity coming. Yesterday the President nominated eight more judges at the circuit district court level as Congress was leaving town for recess, and Mitch McConnell, the majority leader in the Senate, filed uh took steps in the process to tee up votes when the Senate comes back on six more circuit court judges. Okay, let's take a step back, take a wide broad view of this. How this ranks in terms of accomplishments of the Trump administration.

How the base feels about it. Is this somethinging that they would notice, they would recognize, and that they would support. I mean, is this right up there with tax cuts. It has an even longer lasting impact potentially because so many of these judges are young in their forties and fifties, and the tax legislation it could be reversed if Democrats retake the Senate. These judges don't have lifetime appointments, and uh,

you know, there's differing views about this. This is the activity has won over a lot of conservative critics of the president. Uh, the outside groups on the progressive side are deeply concerned. They say these judges could roll back civil rights protections, consumer protections, bring up much more pro business perspective to courts. Um, gay rights could be at risk. So, um, but this is a this is a big deal. This

could even be bigger than the tax bill. So, Laura, look at the demographics of this and Obama tried to get diversity on the federal bench. What's happening now. Um, there's a very sharp contrast between lot Obama was doing in terms of the judges he was nominating and got through, compared to what we're seeing under Trump. For instance, under Obama, we'll take the circuit court numbers, we had about seventy I'm sorry, of the circuit court judges confirmed so far

are white males under Obama was just thirty three. Obama was trying to reverse what he saw under George W. Bush, which was a sixty uh for white male judges confirmed. And so it's kind of gone back and then some Alright, Laura la Van Bloomberg News Congressional reporter a terrific story about this very issue on the Bloomberg terminal. I encouraged to check it out. Thanks so much, Laura. Thanks for

listening to the Bloomberg Law podcast. You can subscribe and listen to the show on Apple podcast, SoundCloud, and on Bloomberg dot com slash podcast. I'm June Basso. This is Bloomberg Ye.