Trump Considering Rejoining TPP; Cohen Expected in Court; Cohen Taped Conversations
BERMAN: All right, the breaking news. We now know that Michael Cohen is expected to be in a federal court next hour for a hearing concerning the raids conducted by the FBI earlier this week. That will be fascinating to hear what happens inside that courtroom. Now, what we don't know is what the FBI might have found, which has led to a big question this morning, does the FBI have in their possession tapes? Taped conversations that the president's personal lawyer might have made perhaps with the president himself, perhaps with Trump campaign workers? Our Kara Scannell joins us now with the details on this. Kara, friends of Michael Cohen, associates, say he taped conversations often.</s>KARA SCANNELL, CNN REPORTER: That's right, John. I mean sources tell Gloria Borger, Sara Murray and I that Michael Cohen routinely taped conversations before the campaign and during the campaign. These sources tell us that Cohen often played those conversations back to candidate Trump. And a lot of these conversations, we're told, had to do with how Trump was being perceived in the media. And they also involved conversations that Michael Cohen was having with other -- in the political sphere. Now, what's very interesting is that, you know, it's very likely that these conversations were scooped up in the FBI raid on Monday. And this is something that a lot of Trump allies are concerned about, were they recorded? It was kind of known within -- those within the campaign that they were warned and kind of secretly discussed among themselves that if they were in Cohen's office, perhaps they would be recorded. And I think this is why we're seeing the drastic and very unusual action taken by Cohen's attorney to file a temporary restraining order. And, of course, you know, as Shimon was reporting, we're going to start to hear those arguments in court in the next hour. So, John, I do think there is some concern among Trump allies that these recordings, since no one knows what they are, is something that will be in the hands of the FBI. And that's really going to be the focus of this court hearing today.</s>BERMAN: All right, Kara Scannell, thank you very much. Terrific information there. Let's try to understand it some more. Joining me is Kendall Coffey, former Florida U.S. attorney. Kendall, thank you so much for being with us. First, on the subject of the tapes, a couple questions. If they exist, number one, wow. And, number two, a guarantee they would be admissible or useable in an investigation?</s>KENDALL COFFEY, FORMER FLORIDA U.S. ATTORNEY: Well, it's a double wow in terms of the existence of tapes. And with Cohen's reputation as something of a recording artist who was taping a lot of people, that could be a major focus of the FBI's early interest. I don't think too many of them are going to be privileged unless he was recording Donald Trump, assuming he was recording third parties, and there's not going to be a privilege issue there. And we all know that very few things are as probative, except perhaps for video, than an audio recording. Witnesses just can't deny it. So everybody that's spoken to Michael Cohen in the last group of years has got to be pretty nervous this morning.</s>BERMAN: And just to be clear, the conversations with the president would only be privileged if he was acting as his lawyer on the subject they were discussing, a, and, b, assuming there wasn't this crime fraud provision that they were plotting some furtherance of a criminal activity, correct?</s>COFFEY: Two very important points. If he's talking to the president just about politics, if he's talking to the president just about frustrating, vetting -- venting, then that's not going to be privileged. It's got to be legal communications and legal subject. And the crime fraud exception is going to be a very tricky subject. It's pretty gray. But it's obviously something that the government intends to pursue here and that could be one of the things that's explored in the hearing today, how are the determinations going to be made about privilege, and will there be a judicially active process, because not everything is privileged. A lot of things are. And that's got to be determined judicially at some point. Maybe not now, but certainly down the road.</s>BERMAN: All right, Kendall, we just learned about this hearing this morning. Our Kara Scannell, a terrific legal reporter, calls it a drastic and unusual act by the lawyers for Michael Cohen to place -- to try to argue for a restraining order on some of this evidence that has been collected. Now, there's so much that we don't know about what they have in their hands and also exactly what Michael Cohen's attorneys will be doing. But what do you see here?</s>COFFEY: Well, what I see is that Cohen is, you know, to use a legal term, freaked out. And he knows -- he knows better than any of us all the things that are in there. And it's something of a longshot because the government has a right to execute search warrants. It's already been judicially approved or the warrant wouldn't have gone forward. So when you file an action to enjoin the execution of a search warrant, you know that isn't going to keep -- that isn't going to happen. What you're really trying to do is get some information about what they've got, about what they're looking for, and perhaps to put some restrictions or some system to have the materials reviewed and have judicial determinations made about privilege issue rather than let the FBI look at everything. Of course there's a separate taint team that's supposed to be separate from the prosecution team going through these documents. But most people in Michael Cohen's position are not only extremely worried right now, but they don't trust the idea that a taint team of people separate from the investigation is going to make an accurate determination about attorney/client privilege issues.</s>BERMAN: Very quickly, Kendall, Michael Avenatti and Stormy Daniels, this other civil case, there's a deadline for some filings on that. Is it likely now that there's clearly some kind of criminal investigation happen, that that will be delayed or put on the back burner?</s>COFFEY: Well, for sure there's a criminal investigation. And, yes, Cohen has got to take the Fifth. He'd frankly be reckless not to. That's going to affect the civil case. But it could just mean that the civil case goes forward in other respects but doesn't count on the testimony of Michael Cohen, who will be taking the Fifth, I suspect.</s>BERMAN: Kendall Coffey, great to have you with us to understand these legal machinations that are happening this morning before our very eyes. Appreciate it.</s>COFFEY: Thanks for including me.</s>BERMAN: All right, now this morning, we're learning that top military officials have warned the president about the risks of getting more involved in Syria. We have a live update from the Pentagon, next.