Mystery Third Client of Cohen Revealed as Sean Hannity

Hannity tried to downplay his association with Cohen on Twitter.

“Michael Cohen has never represented me in any matter,” Hannity tweeted Monday. “I never retained him, received an invoice, or paid legal fees. I have occasionally had brief discussions with him about legal questions about which I wanted his input and perspective.”

Tug of war over evidence review

For his part, Cohen sat stonily most of the afternoon, occasionally whispering and passing notes to his attorneys. Cohen became audibly upset at one point after prosecutor Thomas McKay said the government only had a handful of electronic devices to send for electronic imaging at a crime lab in Quantico, Virginia.

“That’s not true,” Cohen sputtered to his attorneys.

His lawyer Todd Harrison later claimed that the government’s tally did not account for multiple cellphones and hard drives.

Ultimately rejecting a restraining order against prosecutors, Wood took a step toward considering a proposal sought by both Cohen and Trump: a privilege review by an independent third party known as a special master.

Trump’s attorney Joanna Hendon said such a precaution would be necessary to protect a sanctified privilege.

“The privilege, your honor, has been recognized for more than 400 years,” Hendon said. “It's the oldest of the privileges known to the common law and the most revered. Nothing less than the fair and just operation of our legal system, which is a beacon to the world and to history, depends on this privilege and without it, no client could speak freely with counsel and no attorney could competently serve their client.”

Wood ordered the parties to suggest candidates to serve this function, but the judge did not commit to actually appointing one.

Federal prosecutors have been fighting hard against this option, noting that appointing one could hobble what they call “a fast-moving investigation.”

"We've been focusing on the number of clients and the volume of privileged communications, because we think this is just the run-of-the-mill case, the kind of case where every day we have filter teams doing privilege reviews,” McKay said.

Federal prosecutors have depicted Cohen as more of Trump’s fixer than a practicing attorney.

“Mr. Cohen sets forth he's got more attorneys of his own than he has clients,” McKay noted today.

Ex-U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, who was fired by Trump, told CNN on Sunday that Cohen is “barely a lawyer.”

When the government filed its first brief, Cohen’s only publicly identified client was the president.

“And there is reason to doubt that even communications with his only publicly identified client regarding payments to Stephanie Clifford, who is also known as Stormy Daniels, would be protected by attorney-client privilege,” the brief states.

“Among other things, President Trump has publicly denied knowing that Cohen paid Clifford and suggested to reporters that they had to ‘ask Michael’ about the payment,” it continues.

Given the number of clients, McKay scoffed at Cohen's claim that the seized records implicates thousands of privileged documents.

“The motion should be denied because the factual premise for it is faulty,” McKay said, estimating that the government seized no more than “10 boxes of physical documents.”

“It is going to be the hard drives, the electronic devices, that's where you're going to see the real volume,” he added.

In his legal brief, Cohen’s legal counsel claimed that taking the privilege process out of the prosecution’s hands would “protect the integrity of the government’s investigation from the toxic partisan politics of the day and attacks on the impartiality of the Justice Department and the [U.S. Attorney’s office].”

Blasting the remark’s irony, McKay reminded the court that the prosecution had no role in those attacks on its reputation.

“There are three parties in this case,” the prosecutor said. “Only two of them have made public comments about the searches. Last Monday, both Mr. Cohen and President Trump made inflammatory comments about this case. Our office has done no such thing.”

While declaring her faith in the government’s privilege team, Wood agreed that a neutral third party could allay public concerns.

“In terms of perception of fairness, not fairness itself, but perception of fairness, a special master might have a role here,” she said.

Leaving the next hearing date undetermined, Wood ordered the prosecutors to file a proposal on Wednesday proposing possible options for a special master and outlining potential privilege claims at issue.

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