US Prosecutors Secretly Read Cohen Emails For 9 Months Before Raiding Office - Documents

Federal prosecutors obtained a series of warrants to begin reading the emails of President Donald Trump's former personal lawyer Michael Cohen as early July 2017, nearly nine months before launching a high-profile raids on Cohen's offices and residence in New York City, according to court documents released on Tuesday

WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 19th March, 2019) Federal prosecutors obtained a series of warrants to begin reading the emails of President Donald Trump's former personal lawyer Michael Cohen as early July 2017, nearly nine months before launching a high-profile raids on Cohen's offices and residence in New York City, according to court documents released on Tuesday.

"On or about July 18, 2017 the FBI sought and obtained a search warrant for emails in the account of (redacted)@gmail.com (the 'Cohen Gmail account') sent or received between January 1, 2016 and July 18, 2017 (the 'First Cohen Gmail Warrant)," according to documents unsealed by the US District Court for the Southern District of New York.

The documents, which also revealed two additional warrants issued to search Cohen emails on August 8, 2017 and November 13, were attached to an application for warrants to search Cohen's office, residence and two other sites, were dated April 8, 2018.

The court records indicate that that an investigation of Cohen had been underway for nearly nine months before an April 9, 2018 raid on Cohen's office in New York City's Rockefeller Center, a hotel room and two other sites.

Cohen subsequently resigned as Trump's lawyer, agreed to cooperate with prosecutors and received a three year sentence after pleading guilty to eight criminal counts, including tax evasion, bank fraud and campaign finance violations, apparently related to hush money payments to women who claimed to have been romantically involved with Trump. He is due to start serving his sentence in May.