The special master reviewing the files obtained by the government during the FBI's April raids of the home, office, and hotel room of Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump's longtime lawyer, found that almost none of what she had looked over so far is protected by attorney-client privilege.
That means almost all of the documents could be used in a potential prosecution by prosecutors from the US Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, where Cohen is the focus of a criminal investigation into whether he violated campaign-finance laws or committed bank fraud.
In a Monday report to US District Judge Kimba Wood, the special master, Barbara Jones, said:
- Just 162 of the roughly 300,000 documents she has reviewed so far fall under the privilege designations she laid out in a May court filing.
- Of 639 paper documents, 14 fall under the guidelines.
- Of the 291,770 electronic files, 148 are privileged.
That means Jones, a retired federal judge, has assessed that less than 0.1% of the documents reviewed so far are privileged.